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Name:
Branch:
Years Served:
Conflicts:
Date of Interview:
Tom Collins (Sergeant)
U.S. Army
1967-1970
Vietnam War
October 14, 2012
Joseph Lingo: This is Joseph Lingo here interviewing, Mr. Tom Collins, a retired veteran. Mr.
Collins, could you please state your date of birth and where you’re from?
Tom Collins: My date of birth is 2/4/43 and I’m originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I’m
a Philly boy.
Lingo: Could you tell us a little bit about your early life before you were in the military?
Collins: My early life Ok. When I was eleven years old, I was the oldest of four, the youngest
being five. My mom passed away of a woman’s cancer. So being the oldest of
eleven years old, I had to take over while my father had to work. So I had it pretty
rough as a youngster. I could not enjoy my childhood as well as my two brothers
and my sister did. So, when I came home from school, I had to get the dinner
ready at eleven years old. And while my two brothers, Joe and Eddie, and my
sister Mary Anne were out playing, and when they came home from school. So,
that went on all the way until I graduated high school. Whatever. Got married at
twenty years old, which was too young because, it did not last but about four and
a half years. About twenty-four and a half years old.
At twenty-five, I get a letter in the mail stating that I’d been drafted. So at
twenty-five years old, I was drafted. Didn’t have a clue (laughs). Didn’t have a
clue. Had I been working…I was working already for five years at a bakery in
Philadelphia called Tasty Cake. And I am about 5’11”, 212 lbs at the time and not
really in shape, but not bad. But, all I knew was, I knew I was going to Vietnam
sooner or later. So, being drafted, had to go to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for
basic training. And had it rough. Had eight weeks of rough, because, by the time I
was done, I had bloody hands, calluses like you wouldn’t believe. But from 212
lbs I went down to 185 lbs of all solid muscle, in a matter of speaking. But it was
good for me, really. Made a better man out of me than I was already. So, and from
there, went to Vietnam eventually, which most of us did. Got to Vietnam and the
replacement center over there , and what we would do when we got off the plane.
We got there at night. And all you can see is…mortar shells, in the night, just
going back and forth. And I got off the top step to come off the plane, and I just
said “Oh shit! I know I’m gonna die.” First thing a guy thinks of, I mean, here I
am, a city boy, never shot a weapon in my whole life. Yeah, I’m sorry, shouldn’t
say that. I used to go hunting up in Pennsylvania with my buddies for deer and
pheasant but other than that, I’ve never shot a rifle, so to speak. And, I, you know,
took my step off that plane. You just know that you were going to die. That’s the
thought of everybody that goes, that went there. Believe me. Because we talked
later and everybody thought the same thing. “Well, I’m not coming home.” I
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�thought the same thing. And, got off the plane, and all you could do. It smelt like
you were in an outhouse. That’s what it smelt like there. Like you were in an
outhouse, standing inside of an outhouse. I said “Oh shit!” But, from there, we
went into a bus. They drove us somewhere and next thing you know, we’re being
placed in different units. Now, myself, I went to military police school in Fort
Gordon, GA.
Lingo: This is the army, right?
Collins: Yeah. Yes, the United States Army. Correct. Military police, we had, were in control of
all the military. There was no such thing as MP’s at that time, in the Marines, the
Navy, Air Force, or whatever. Air Force had Air Patrol. Navy had SP, Shore
Patrol, but the Military Police were over them. So we had jurisdiction over all the
military as Military Police. And, but that’s all changed from what I understand
today. Everyone has to go to military police school in their own organizations.
Military, the Marines, Navy, Air Force and it’s all changed. So, so, anyhow, we
go, and the next thing you know we’re standing outside and this SGT comes
walking down He’s telling people, you’re going here, you’re going there, you’re
going there, you’re going into the infantry, you’re going to such and such a unit,
you’re going here, you’re going there. And this guy’s sending me out into the
jungle as an infantry. I say “Whoa Sarge! Yo! I wasn’t even trained for the
infantry.” I said “I was trained to be a Military Policeman.” I said “What the hell
you doing?!” You know, I didn’t get too cocky. Because, he understood what I
was saying, and he had orders for military police to certain companies to go to.
So, he said “Ok, ok. Collins.” He said “You go to the 716th, Company A which is
located in Saigon.” I said “Ok.” And then there was a couple of other guys that
were assigned to the 716th in Saigon. But there was A, B, and C companies so I
was thankful for that, I think. Untill, pretty thankful, I guess. Now, I figure, well,
whatever. Do you mind? I got to have a swig of water.
Lingo: Yeah, that’s fine.
Collins: I get to talking too much, I get dry. So…Now let me see. This is 19,…1968, January.
And anyhow, when I first got there as military police, we had shit duty.
Consisting of, you had to sit in a tower at a depot, all around Saigon. Saigon
consisted of all the generals that ran the war over there, all the big officers. Where
their headquarters or their billets were in Saigon and the 716th Military Police
which is the 18th Battalion were the ones to take care of them and make sure
nobody bothered them in a manner of speaking. Getting to the bad point here.
Which was the Tet Offense. I’m glad I was on patrol at the time. Eventually, I
earned myself patrol which you don’t get right away when you’re a newcomer.
You got to earn that.
Lingo: Would you briefly describe patrol? What that means, exactly.
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�Collins: Yeah. Patrol: 12 hour days and what is it? 151, no, M51 jeep; no top. You didn’t have a
top on because you can see on the roofs and the tops of the houses and buildings
of Saigon as you patrolled your district, just like a cop. We had an M60 machine
gun mounted in the back of us with several thousand rounds. Plus we carried an
M16 and a .45 military issued. Plus a vest, a vest, steel pot. The vest, thing must
have weighed thirty pounds to wear that thing. And we just patrolled on anything
unusual. We’d look into or if we got a call to go to a fight in a bar. Things of that
sort. Shooting, whatever the radio operator from the military police building
would send us depending on what patrol you were working. I worked the fifth
district so most of the time, if not all, while I was there, I was in Car 51 and the
guy on the radio at the police building. Can’t even think of the name. We called
him Waco. So, anytime Waco called you, you’d respond to him. He’d just say like
for instance “Car 51. Car 51 this is Waco.” So either myself, depending on who’s
driving, or my partner who would pick it up and answer him “Waco this is 51.”
And he would send us possibly to a fight, a shooting, or whatever. And come to
find out, while I was there, not knowing how big, as far as the surroundings,
Saigon, Vietnam was. Come to find out, there was like five million people that
live in Saigon. And five million people, you didn’t trust them. Not a one. Not a
one. You didn’t know who they were. Many times, many times, they were VC.
What they were called VC, Viet Cong; the enemy. You just had to constantly look
while on patrol, day or night. Night time, thankfully, I’m glad in a way I had day
patrol while I was there. 12 hours on, 12 hours off, no time off. I think for about
three or four months after I was there, you just go out and have a couple beers,
shoot the bowl with the guys, whatever, or you just stay and write letters, or
whatever.
But…I was always on the defense; every day, every minute, every hour of
the day. If you weren’t you couldn’t really let yourself lose, really, and not pay
attention to your surroundings, and to this day, 43 years later, I am still the same
way. I don’t trust anybody I don’t know, to this day. I go out with my wife to a
restaurant, and I have to sit in a certain area so I can see everybody, because I
don’t trust anybody that I don’t know. The only people I trust are veterans, my
brothers. Other than that, I always think that “I don’t know you, I don’t know you,
I don’t trust you, I don’t trust you.” Because that’s the way it was there. You
don’t turn your back ever on anybody, ever, in a combat zone, other than your
own buddies; your own brothers. Because it’s happened, number of times. Just
like we’re on patrol, I’ll give you an example. Day time, night time, it doesn’t
matter.
Day time, these Vietnamese people would drive these little Hondas.
There’d be two on one most of the time, on a Honda, when they were going to
work. There were times where it happened, didn’t happen to me, thankfully, they
would toss a grenade in our jeep. You got to understand, you’re driving a jeep
and you got amongst you thousands of people on Hondas! It’s like you’re in the
middle, they’re on the sides, they’re in front of you, they’re in back of you, you
got to be constantly looking, all the time. I used to teach my guys that because
once I made sergeant, I had to teach all these young guys. I was 20, I turned 26,
man, and there’s guys that are 18, 19 years old that I’m working with. That’s the
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�oldest they are. They were from cities, like myself, and a lot of them were from
Ohio, New York, Detroit, cities like that. They were like me, you know. They
didn’t think like this before. And once you’re older, and because of my
upbringing, because of what I had to do at a young age, I had a lot of common
sense and I knew what to look out for and whatever; roof tops, you got to keep
your eyes on the roofs, because it happened, when Tet started, they were on the
roofs, everywhere, the snipers. They killed, you know. We had a lot of my
brothers killed as military police.
When the VC attacked Saigon, in Tet, what they called Tet, was the New
Year for the Vietnamese people. That was what they called Tet. And, this offense
became known as the Tet Offense. Now, thank god after it was all over, I come to
find out, approximately, there were 4000 VC, trying to take over Saigon. And
there was a thousand of us in A, B, and C Company of the 716th Military Police.
We each had a section of Saigon, out to Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base, that was C
Co, and B Co was in the middle of Saigon,. I was in A Company, which was in
Cholon, which was known, they were mostly Chinese people that lived in the
Cholon area, which was a bad area. So I come to find out later on. It was a very
bad area, Cholon. There again, you just have to keep your eyes open and be
prepared, and keep a round in the chamber at all times. You don’t want to have to
stop, when somebody starts shooting at you, you don’t want to have to stop and
say “Wait a minute!” <click clack> Put a round in your 16, your .45, you better
have a round in there all the time. Just be able to take the safety off and do what
you got to do. And that’s what happened when the shit hit the fan.
Eventually, it hit the fan, man. I mean, unbelievable. It’s in books, there’s
pictures of us, the military police, the 716th,…we lost 24 brothers, man. I mean,
from snipers up on the roofs picking MPs off at the embassy, which we had…the
Marines were there protecting the embassy, the American Embassy there. And,
there was only two Marines, which was a joke, so the Military Police were sent
there to protect the ambassador and whoever worked there, and whatever and all
that. We lost like…eight or nine MPs there alone, just picked off, laying in the
street, laying by their jeep,…the VC, what they had done was built tunnels across
the street, and they would come under ground, across under the street, and up into
the embassy, into their grounds. And, the guys, the MPs that got there first, all
around the embassy, they see these little V, these little Gooks, they called them
Gooks, or whatever, the VC, the Viet Cong, they see them popping up out of the,
out of the dirt, you know? And they just picked them off, once they found out
from various areas of the grounds. Just like I said, they build tunnels across the
street, right under the embassy.
They were prepared. And…you just killed as many as you could, because
if you didn’t they were going to kill you. There’s no doubt about it. You had to do
what you had to do to survive, otherwise you were dead. You’re just dead. “It’s
not a game.” That’s what I used to tell my young boys. “It’s not a game.” ‘Cause
once I made Sergeant they gave me a squad of 18 and 19 year old fellas. And like
I said, I’m 26 years old now. So…you try to teach them. You just don’t trust no
body, you don’t get too close, other than your own brother here, and that’s it,
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�man. Bar girls and that kinda stuff, don’t get too close. You don’t know who’s
who, and…it’s unbelievable.
Tet Offense went on for several weeks; two and a half weeks. That’s all it
was; shooting and killing for a couple two and a half weeks or so. Unbelievable. It
was…it’s like you could make a movie out of it. But, my understanding from it
was that when it was all over, we killed, so they say, over 2,400 of them. And we
did get help from the…I think it was the 25th Infantry came to help us, so…we
drove them out, you know? They were dead all over. Streets, and if you look up,
if you go buy some DVDs, you’ll see, you’ll see that, in the streets, dead just
laying all over,…our MPs are in the streets dead, too, stuff like that, which…I
was glad, I was glad to get home! At the end of ’69. I was there for two years.
They wanted to make me E-6, but I said “Nah.” I was offered E-6 and a $5,000
bonus, and that was 1969. And I said “No, I don’t think so. I just want to go
home.” I still have three months to go now, so, each day, man, it’s just, it’s like,
each day, man. You’re just looking around, you don’t want to get involved,
because what happens is if you get involved in a killing now, or whatever, it’s
like, you can’t go, because now you have to go to a court and all kinds of junk.
Now you got to understand, we’re working with civilians, and we’re military
people. We’re in their country, so what happens is, [brief interruption from Mrs.
Collins] a big major shooting goes on, and now you got to go before a court,
because you killed one of their people, or whatever it was. So, just things of that
sort, because it’s not like Tet. Tet was over now, so now we got everything under
control in the military. Back in Saigon we got it under control again. And…right
before I left, about three weeks no, not before I left I had four months [counts
months to himself], I had five months to go and had two of my buddies killed.
They were on patrol, they were second shift. B Company, and I knew them , and I
was just talking to them at the PX, just when I got done with my twelve hours, I
went to the PX, I had to buy some stuff, and these guys were given' the regular
guys a break, and the PX, and all your main head quarters or buildings for
the…big officers always had an MP outside.
Lingo: And “PX” is…?
Collins: The Commissary. We called it the PX at the time…[ Post] Exchange…I forget what the
“P” stands for, it’s been so long, but the “X” stood for “Exchange”. Well, that’s
the Commissary where you go buy cigarettes, and whatever you want, cigarettes,
liquor, clothing, like…civilian clothing, shoes, and stuff, cameras, you could buy
cameras,…and I didn’t know at the time, but you could buy a car, and have it
ready by the time I came home. I could have bought, like, a ’69 Camaro for half
price. Uhh, God, when these guys told me what they done I said ‘I didn’t know
you could buy a car!” They said “Yeah, at the Commissary, at the PX!” I said
“You’re kidding! What?” Yeah, they had an area, you could buy books, you could
buy any car you wanted that was out at that time. If you were there in ’68, you
could buy a ’68 Camaro, you could buy ’69, you could buy a charger, and just,
any kinda car you wanted <brief interruption from Mrs. Collins>. Any engine you
wanted, and I didn’t, man, I didn’t know that, cause when I got home, I bought a
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�’69 Charger when I got home, so, whatever. I could have gotten it a lot cheaper
and with a big, big engine, I didn’t know. Whatever.
I,…there again, my two buddies, brothers I’ll call them. Each of them had
three weeks to go. They were getting ,counts months to himself., they were
leaving in September, and on the 31st of June, they worked the second shift, they
were Company B, and they were told to go to a bar fight, and they went inside the
bar to see what was going on and whatever, and next thing you know, we heard it
later at night, we were woke up and told us that both of them were shot and killed
in the bar while they were on duty. A…an ally killed them. One of our allies; a
south Vietnamese officer, a major, shot and killed them; he was drunk. They
didn’t have their pistols drawn or nothing, man. He just come out drunk, coming
upstairs room in this bar, and the story we were told was he had this .45 in his
hand, and he shot and killed both of them as they were coming up the steps to see
what the ruckus was, and I just got done talking with them several hours ago,
shooting the shit with them, and, whatever. And to this day,…in honor of them, I
have their names on my vehicles; our, my two vehicles we have here; my wife’s
and mine; I have there, in little, in little white print, I have their names and the day
they were killed. On both sides of my vehicle, back window, side windows; on
each of my vehicles. In honor of them. So, every time someone looks at them, I
want them to think of them two guys. I lost other guys, other buddies too, but
uh…
Anyhow, I couldn’t wait it get home. Guys in the field had it rough, in the
jungle, but a lot of them weren’t shot at as much as the MPs were, in Saigon,
believe me. Because Charlie, they called VC Charlie, too; he was known as
Charlie; he wanted to make a big hit and Saigon was the capital of Vietnam. So, if
they could take over Saigon first, now the Tet offense, the VC on the same day
started, which was the 32st January, they started this Tet offense at once, all over
Vietnam. Not just Saigon, it was all around Vietnam. They tried to take over all
the cities, and whatever, and it was just like all hell broke loose in the country of
Vietnam at the time called the Tet Offense. It wasn’t very nice, it wasn’t very
nice, let me tell you. Let me tell you. Cause now, you’re even more spooky on
patrol, as myself, and my buddies and brothers, were even more spooky. I didn’t
trust anybody then, and now I m even worse, until I was getting ready to leave. I
stopped, I caught, 5 deserters over there, in Saigon. Un-freaking real. Can you
imagine being a deserter for five years? For four years? I got one with three years,
and one for two years, and I think one for one yea.
That sounds strange, but I did. And you know, just by stopping guys ,and
checking them out, and looking at them, and saying “something’s wrong with that
guy, I know it. I can tell by the way he’s dressed.” You know, I mean he’s got
fatigues on, jungle fatigues on, and a bonnie hat, but something’s wrong. He’s got
the wrong shoes on. He don’t have boots on. Or if he has boots on, there’s
something, there’s just something wrong.” And I used to teach my younger guys
“when you’re on patrol, you look out for certain things when you stop a person.”
And that was unbelievable. I come to find out that the desk sergeant “Hey SGT
Collins, this guy’s a deserter for five years” and I said “you got to be shitting
me!” What they do when they go desertion, you know after they go AWOL after a
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�certain time, then they’re deserters. what they do is they stay there with the
Vietnamese people and they live with them people, and those people give them
false identification, and they make up ration cards; at the time you had a ration
card, you could only buy so many things at the PX, at the Exchange, and you stop
a guy and you ask them’ for their ID, and you can tell by looking at their ID that
something’s wrong with it, the coloring is off, and what unit are you with and
where’s your pass, and they make an excuse up, and so you get on the radio, you
call in, Desk SGT calls back, they never heard of them, they don’t know who he
is, so you say okay, and right away you cuff them. But first, you, you search them.
So, here I am m, I have three weeks to go, so now I’m training y young guys, and
they know what to do by now, but I always tell them, I said “while I’m on the
radio, you keep an eye on him. If he tries anything, you do what you need to do.”
So I’m searching this little fella, that I, that I stopped, I put him up on the wall,
just like a regular cop does, we were trained like regular police were. And, found
this little guy, had a .45 tucked in the front of his belt, covered over with the
jungle fatigues because it covered them over, see, you weren’t tucked in or
nothing, your jungle fatigues, they were just laying out. Well this little guy, had a
.45 tucked in his belt, in his belly. I felt that, boy I got, you don’t know, like this
right, and I took it out. And I had him spread, you know with his feet and his
hands up on the wall. And when I pulled that out, I just kicked his foot, his leg
from under him, and he just went <whap bang>! Down on the ground! And then I
checked the .45 that he had, and don’t; he have a round in the chamber. That even
pissed me off even more! He had a round in the chamber, which means ,if he had
the opportunity, he would have used in on me or my partner! It was ready to
shoot. All he had to do was pull the trigger. That pissed me off even more! So, I
cuffed him right then , and I basically threw him in the jeep. I had to watch what I
was doing, because there’s people around, because it’s a PX, it’s a civilian area, a
military area where people are going into this exchange area to buy stuff, so you
had to be careful, but I did give him a couple shots to the ribs before I threw him
into the jeep, and I got to talking with my partner, I said “See that? Don’t ever
take your eyes off anybody you stop, never!” I said “Now, just to say we put him
in the jeep without searching him,…because maybe he’s sweet talking you or
some bull. He’s got a gun, with a round in the chamber, were driving the vehicle,
he’s sitting back there cause were gonna take him to the station, and he pulls that
out,” I said “because you never searched him ,or you never cuffed him neither.” I
said “I just want you guys, you guys, to know, what you got to do, man. You just
can’t trust anybody.”
I was glad to get home, well not the way I was treated though. I flew back
to Philadelphia on December 21st, or the 22nd. I think it was the 22nd. I thought I
was, I thought I was welcomed home, but I wasn’t. Once I got in the airport, I was
spit at, by two guys walking in the airport and they called me a “baby killer”, and
I just didn’t understand what was going on, cause I wasn’t told about it in
Oakland when I was getting out of the army. Now they must started telling people
behind us, when they were getting out, because they were told “Don’t even wear
your uniform to home.” To me that was bull shit because I’m wearing my uniform
home, because was proud of what I done. Thankfully I came home alive. There
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�were 59,000 guys who didn’t come home, that were killed. 59,800 something.
So,…at least I was alive. My workplace didn’t want to give me my job back after
working there for five years. I was pretty well pissed after I got home, I really
was. I think after couple of days, like less than a week, I wish I was back in
Vietnam, at least I had the respect of my own people. And I knew I could trust
them, too. You get home,…you were treated like shit. I couldn’t understand it. I
just got bitter. More bitter. I think I got bitter form that, a lot. And I drank a lot
after that. Drank a lot. Didn’t care. Didn’t care. I looked for a fight, anytime you
wanted a fight; I was ready. For somebody to say something wrong to me. I’m
ready to kick you’re ass, or you’re going to kick my ass, either or! But I’m going
to let you know. “Don’t talk to me that way”, or whatever. I guess what I was
looking for was respect for what I done, and I didn’t get it. To this day, I just
don’t, I never forget it. I tell people that, I said “If I could come across those two
guys that spit at me, I was carrying my duffel bag, and I was just happy to be
home, those guys looked over at me and just both of them spit at me, and called
me a ‘baby killer’. And I swear to God, I didn’t know what was going on. I just, I
stood there dumbfounded and dropped my duffel bag and looked at them. And I
just said ‘What the hell just happened here?’ If I was on my, my game, I’m gonna
say, cause I had a .38 in my duffel bag that I took with me. I would have shot both
of those guys, I really would have. I would have killed them. Or I would have
shot them in their knee caps. I really would, cause I didn’t care what happened to
me. All I know is you treat me like this,…if I wasn’t as happy, so to speak, as I
was, and glad to be home, honest to God. I would have grabbed that .38 out of my
duffel bag and would have just went after them and shot them. Simple as that.
You ain’t spitting at me no more. I didn’t deserve that. Who the hell do you think
you are, spitting at me after I just, what I went through. You don’t, you don’t
know what I went through…You don’t walk in my boots, so to speak. Anybody
who ever says anything…You don’t know what a Vietnam Veteran went through,
or a World War Two Veteran, or a World War One Veteran. You don’t know
what they went through. You don’t know what I went through; ‘cause you didn’t
walk in my boots.”
And that’s that I was thinking about. I was afraid, every day, even though
I was back in the city, a city of 5 million people; you didn’t know who was who.
And it’s the same shit that’s going on in Afghanistan. Their regular,…so to speak,
their military is shooting our people in the back. You’re supposed to be allies,
working with one another. And you wonder why these people, these men and
women, who come home, and why they are the way they are. It’s… Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder is what it’s called, believe me, I mean, been there. I’ve
seen guys that are really bad with that. I know guys, to this day, that are bad with
that and it still continues with them today. Forty some-odd years later and it still
happens, some guys. And, it’s not their fault. It’s the country’s fault. Vietnam was
a bad war. It should have never happened. Never. The government had no respect
for us at all, and the people neither at that time. It just wasn’t right. Too many
people, over 58,000 people got killed and it wasn’t right. A bunch of kids, a lot of
them, bunch of good kids like you and,…like yourself and your friends. And they
weren’t given the respect,…anybody can tell you that was in Vietnam, bad war.
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�Really was. Really was. No respect for us, and it pisses me off to this day. I’ll
never forget it and I’ll never let it go. People say “How can you hold on to that?”
You don’t understand! You weren’t there! You weren’t treated like I was when I
came home. I was ready to, “Holy shit! Why are you treating me like that?” I even
asked the cab driver that took me home from the airport. I said “What the hell was
going on?” Why am I being treated like this? I said “Holy shit! Is this the way it’s
going to be?” You know? I said “If that’s the case,” I told my father when I got
home, I said “If that’s the case, I want to go back1 At least I was treated well
there by my own people!” My brothers and all, you know. But, of course, that
didn’t happen. I thought it out and went back to my old job, ‘cause I…I
threatened them to go to the government, you know. It was a big company in
Philadelphia, the bakery, I was there five years already and I went back looking
for my job about a month later, and…”Oh, we, someone else is on that job.” And
I said “So?” I said, “I’m guaranteed my job.” I said, “I didn’t ask to go. I was
drafted.” And, you know, whatever. And that guy, that boy, that boss, that
supervisor, I wanted to kick his ass, right then and there. I wanted to kick his
ass,…I felt bad because he was smaller than me. And that’s probably why I didn’t
do it! Because I would have dropped him right there, believe me! And I just, I just
got so pissed, and I said, “Well you know, we’ll see about that.” I said “I’m going
to go to personnel and talk to them.” Which I probably never should have told
him that, because he ran in the office when I went over to go get the elevator to go
upstairs to talk to personnel.
I know he ran in his office to call them and tell them that I was on my
way. “Well, you’re a hot head. You got a chip on your shoulder.” “Well son of a
bitch! I’m deserving of my job and you don’t want to give me my job back? What
do you mean I got a chip on my shoulder?” And even after I got my job back,
years later…”Tom, you got a chip on your shoulder.” I said “I don’t got a, I don’t
have a chip on my shoulder, I’m just telling you like it is! And you don’t want to
hear it! That’s the problem!” You know. If I have something to say to you, you’re
telling me one thing, and I have an answer for you, and that answer you don’t
want to hear, that’s what it is. Don’t tell me I got a chip on my shoulder. Where I
used to drink at around the corner from where I lived in Philly, I used to go to,
walk to the bar, and became friends with some guys.
This one fella used to sit there after he’d come from work, and he had an
office job. Me, I’m busting my ass all my life as a laborer, but whatever. I used to
go in for some drinks and got friendly with this fella, and he used to tell me after a
while, when we’d talk. He said “Tom, you got a chip on your shoulder.” I said,
“Man, don’t you freaking tell me I got a chip on my shoulder just because you
don’t want to hear what I have to say.” I said “You don’t want to talk to me, I
could care less, I mean, I’ll go and sit in that corner, that’s not a problem”. I come
in here to get a drink, and you don’t want to be bothered just because you don’t
like what I got to say. I have a chip on my shoulder. Yeah, okay. People don’t like
it when you tell the truth about things that they don’t want to hear, that they really
don’t. Whether it’s about the Vietnam War, or I have a problem with the way
veterans are treated today, coming back home, I have a problem with that. My
wife and I donate to about 4 different, things for the military, which I’m proud of.
9
�We don’t have a whole lot to donate, but we do, several times a year, for each
organization, a few dollars helps, here and there. But, the way they’re being
treated when they come home, it’s the same junk the way I was, the way I was
treated, all us Vietnam Vets, when we got home, were just treated like dirt, honest
to God. They didn’t want to give you your jobs back, they didn’t, they didn’t want
to hire you because you’re a Vietnam Vet. In other words, you were a bad person.
“Oh we were doing what our country, the United States of America, asked us to
do.” And for that, we’re bad people, you know. I mean, I just,…it’s very hard to
understand. It really is.
That’s about it. I mean, I’ll be 70 years old very shortly, and…I should
have died ten years ago. I have a thing form Agent Orange, which Agent Orange
was a thing that was sprayed in Vietnam, to kill all the foliage, the trees and
everything, It was supposed to kill it all, which it did, and its killed a lot of
Vietnam Vets too over the years, that come up with cancer. There must be twenty
five to thirty different diseases that they found out Agent Orange caused, and
mine is…I had a five way bypass done, ten years ago. Now I have a Pacemaker
defibrillator, and this is my second one, as you can see the scar up here is my first
one. And what they had to do was change one about five months ago, because the
battery was running low and it was no good. So they had to move the pocket and
put a new one down here. And what it is, defibrillator Pacemaker is they have a
wire that goes down my heart. So if I have a problem with my heart, one or the
other will take over. So, and, I didn’t find this out until as far as what caused it
until about a year and a half ago.
All these years I had been home. And they finally caught up with me ten
years ago. I had a heart attack here, because my wife and I had been living here
for twenty six years, and…one day at work, Monday morning, bang! Heart attack.
So, that was April 22nd, ’02, right? Yeah, ’02. And, ’03 November was when I
had to be cut, and I had a triple bypass, well, apparently, two, two of the…of the
veins didn’t take. So, before the doctor and team went home, because it was a
Saturday morning and they don’t do heart, things, transplants, or no, not
transplants, heart operations on Saturday. They normally really don’t do it, but
apparently when they tested me and did my thing on Friday afternoon, they seen,
they were all, up in the high 90’s that were blocked, all of them. So, I was a
candidate for Saturday morning, and down in Charlotte,…so, they cut me open,
did me an ICU, and something wasn’t right. This I found out later through the
head nurse. She said “Tom we thought you were gone.” She said, and she said “I
had to call the doctor, get him back here,” She said “In all my years as a head, as a
nurse in ICU, I never seen what happened with you; with the machines. In other
words, these things where they go ‘beep beep beep beep beep’ well they’d go
‘beep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeep’ it’d stay there!” She said! And she said “I
had never seen that before!” And she said “Oh my gosh!” She said “I knew I had
to call them back!” Which the doctor knew, that when she called back something
was wrong. So they had to re-cut me open. That’s why the scar is so thick.
Normally now it’s like a little hair. Or normally now what they do is they come
up here, from what I understand; under your armpit. And, they had cut me re, they
had cut me open again, and they do two more. She said, she said “Tom, you,” she
10
�didn’t tell me, she wouldn’t tell me, and I was trying to get it out of her. She said
“You shouldn’t be here.” I said “Well where should I be?” Now you got to
understand, this is my first time being in a hospital my whole life, and I’m 59
years old , in a hospital, with a heart attack, and open heart surgery, and all this
other junk ,and she said “You should have, you should have gone.” I said “Gone
where?” You know, I was trying to get her to tell me. I was trying to hear her tell
me that I should have died. She said “You should have passed.” I said “What are
you talking about?” I kind of knew what she was talking about; I just wanted to
get her to tell me. I said “Are you trying to tell me I should have died?” She said
“Yes”, but she didn’t want to put it in them words. She said “Yes, Tom. You
should, you should not be here.” She said “All of the nurses up here, all the nurses
in ICU don’t know why you’re still here. In fact,” she said, “we started calling
you ‘that miracle guy’”. I said well, I guess the good Lord wasn’t, my wife would
say “He wasn’t ready for you to go up there and give him a hard time!” I said
“Probably not, I guess I got more work to do; I’m not ready yet.” And that was
ten years ago, and I’m very thankful, really.
That was tough, man….I was in the hospital for nine days, and that was
tough. Anyhow, that was all my understanding, and the VA said that it was form
all the Agent Orange being sprayed, over in Vietnam. Now where I was, over in
Saigon, I come to find out, through people, by reunion people, we have a reunion
every two years, the 716th Military Police, every two years we have a reunion
somewhere, and those guys were telling me “Hey Tom, did you know that Saigon
was the second, if not the first, heavily sprayed area in Vietnam? And do you
know why? Because of all the generals that were there, and all the officers that
were in Saigon, their headquarters, where they… billets were and the hotels they
stayed in, and all that kind of stuff. That’s why. So when they sprayed, they
sprayed like hell, to kill everything on the, on the outside of Saigon, you know?
That’s why. And a lot of us, being, well even them people living in there, us being
MPs and whatever, we’re breathing in that stuff every day. So ,and it,…a lot of
my buddies dies, have dies, from what it done to them; giving them cancer. It’s a
cancer causing thing. It really is, amongst a lot of other things that they found out,
over the years. I do get compensated, a few bucks for it. Not a whole lot, but it’s
something, I guess.
So I’m living my life! Very interesting, especially when you’re in the
military. I think, I think, by the way I was treated, I often wondered, I stayed,
went back or said “Yes, I’ll take that five thousand, now I can order my car!” Like
a ’69 Camaro, or whatever. But I didn’t do it, and I probably would have made a
life out of it. Because I was good at what I done; at Military Police. And that was
why they wanted to make me E-6 <Staff Sergeant>, because I was good at what I
done. I mean, I stopped a lot of thing from going on,…I’ve seen two VC, on one
of those Hondas, stick, C4 <plastic explosive> on one of the military buses. And I
didn’t know what it was at the time. I was watching, and as I watch people, and
we had a military bus, that brought a lot of these military people to this PX, in
Cholon. And just watching this Honda, with two guys on it, you know the little
people. And all of a sudden I see the Honda stop, and the guy in the back goes
like <motions with hand> and they took off. So what does that tell you? Well that
11
�tells me he just stuck something up on the left, rear,…wheel well! And right
away, I couldn’t leave my post, because I was the fella that was working the front
gate. So I called in for a patrol right away, and I told them, I said “You better get
the bomb squad here!” I said “I’m positive, I’m sure they just stuck a piece of C4
Up there.” And they were going to wait until that thing got loaded, and then blow
the damn thing up., with all them people in it. And sure enough, it was; it was a
plastic on that rear wheel well. So because of me, thankfully, and I was given a
citation for it, which I was, just doing my job, but whatever.
That’s all I got to say! And I’m hoping I can live a lot longer!
Lingo: That’s pretty incredible!...
Collins: And I have shot and killed people over there, not because I wanted to, but because I had
to. One time we were going on duty…
The rest of the interview is lost because the recording equipment ran out of room on its storage
device.
12
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/b70f1e0de4833b34f2764dc83b9d0c0c.mp3
142d6d37781e4065eace3aded14cf064
Dublin Core
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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
59.6 KB
118 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
military branch (U.S. Army, etc)
U.S. Army
Officer Rank
Officer rank (major, private, etc)
Sergeant
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lingo; Josheph
Collins; Tom
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Lingo, Joseph
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Collins, Tom
Interview Date
10/14/2012
Number of pages
12
Duration
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0:51:50
Date digitized
2/5/2015
Checksum
alphanumeric code
a86579bd35619a295936d42d1f3c7e29
142d6d37781e4065eace3aded14cf064
Scanned by
Leah McManus
Equipment
Adobe Acrobat XI Pro
Resolution
300
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.
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UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
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48000kzh x 16 bit
Format, original
Electronic File
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5018_Collins_Tom_2012_1014_M
5018_Collins_Tom_20121014_audio_A
Title
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Interview with Sergeant Tom Collins [October 14, 2012]
Type
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Oral History
Language
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English
English
Creator
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Lingo, Joseph
Collins, Tom
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Sergeant Tom Collins, born in 1943 in Philadelphia, was drafted during the Vietnam War and went to Fort Bragg in North Carolina for his basic training. He entered the army and was trained as a military policeman. He served in Saigon on a patrol squad. He says to this day, even in civilian life, he doesn't trust people he doesn't know after his experience in the military and having to constantly be on the look-out.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Collins, Tom
Veterans
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
United States
Personal narratives, American
Interviews
army
draft
Fort Bragg
military police
Saigon
Vietnam War
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/636681b4f2ff57d993f734fc77717b16.mp3
09a9f8ad8cb70dfa4dab21c7521ddeb0
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/f0781312b2b8caee7130ea4929bcb126.pdf
0acd0cd966ad2268ce6f9921314f5139
PDF Text
Text
Military Oral History Interview Transcript
Colonel Russell Olson
Boone, NC
15 October 2011
CO: Russell Olson, Jr., Colonel
BH: Ben Hedgepath
LH: Laura Hedgepath
BH: Can you tell me who you are and where you were born and raised.
CO: My name is Russell V. Olson Jr., and I was born in Oakland California on August 3rd,
1947.
BH: What branch of military did you serve in and did you see any wars?
RO: I spent 30 years as a field artillery officer in the US Army and saw combat in Vietnam.
BH: What was your rank and when did you serve?
RO: Well, I entered the Army as a second lieutenant, and retired as a full colonel. In Vietnam
I was a first lieutenant.
BH: When and why did you choose the military?
RO: My father spent 27 years in the Navy. So I was naturally predisposed to service in the
military. Maybe it was in the genes I don’t know. And I also went to a military college in
Charleston, South Carolina.
BH: Had you decided to go into the military before you went to the Citadel? Or was that
after you…
RO: I feel like I would have probably taken ROTC at wherever...
BH: So there was a lot of patriotism at the Citadel?
RO: At the Citadel? (ha-ha) I would say that was a center of American patriotism.
There were no anti war demonstrations at the Citadel.
BH: That's interesting. And good. So tell me about your college life and your training.
1
�RO: Well, the Citadel was the military college of South Carolina. It started in 1842, and
when I went there we were called cadets and not students. We wore uniforms all the time.
We lived in barracks in highly structured regiments society. There were ROTC programs
there for Army, Air Force, did not have one for the navy at the time. I would say that most
cadets that went to the Citadel were actively involved in the ROTC to with the intent of
becoming commissioned officers upon graduation. I majored in history, because I enjoyed
history and reading and I really did not give a lot of thought about what I would do with
this degree.
BH: So, you graduated college in 1969, which was the same year as the draft. What was
your opinion of the draft?
RO: Well, I know now a lot more about the draft then I did then. I studied the subject, I
have taught history. As you probably know, we have had a number of drafts in our
nation's history. Draft in the Civil War, World War One, World War Two, and then
throughout almost the entire Cold War. It was during the late 1 9 70s that we switched to
an all-volunteer force. My personal feeling is that the draft, as it was applied to Vietnam
was inherently unfair and I think it was a mistake for our government to give deferrals
to people who simply go them because they could afford to go to college.
BH: Were most people that were drafted. Did they feel like they were being pushed to
fight unwillingly?
RO: My first assignment for the military we got a lot of draftees in our units. This was in
the early 1970s, you know ’70, ’71 and ’72. There were some moral problems. Quite
frankly, I did not detect much difference between soldiers that were drafted and those that
were volunteering. A lot of the draftees' were just adopted the attitude that "we do not
like being here but I am just going to do what it takes, stay out of trouble, get out." So as
far as discipline and drug use…you couldn't really tell who was a draftee and who was a
volunteer.
BH: Did you ever have any or were you ever nervous about leading men who did not seem
to or want to be there. Or who don't seem to want to fight? Was there a big difference?
RO: I personally think that the one key to leadership is to establish a rapport with your
soldiers. And you do that by a variety of ways, communication, sharing in hardships,
demonstrating to them that you care about, as individuals. And you also, number one care
about the mission.
BH: Right, I can see that. So, who were you in command of, who were these soldiers
that you were...
RO: When I first entered the Army I was in Germany with an artillery unit and I was the
platoon leader. When I was in Vietnam I was an advisor, and I wasn’t in command of
2
�anybody. And we can talk about that more later. After Vietnam I was a battery
commander at Fort Sill, Oklahoma where I had about a 100 soldiers under my command.
Much later I was battalion commander at Fort Drum, New York. With about 500 soldiers
and millions of dollars of equipment under my command. As a senior officer and full
coronel, I performed primarily staff jobs the next to last job as a full colonel was our defense
at Akshay at New Deli, India. And that was primarily an intelligence gathering position.
BH: Okay. You said you were an advisor in Vietnam, Who were you advising. And what did
that consist of?
RO: Let me give you some background of why I was in Vietnam.
BH: Okay, sure.
RO: As you are well aware, after President Nixon was elected, he ran on a platform of
Vietnameseization and our troop levels peaked at about 500,000 right after he was
inaugurated. Then he started to have a phased withdraw and hand the battle over to the
Vietnamese in a program he called Vietnameseization. By the time I came to active duty and
went to Germany we were not sending a lot of folks to Germany. I actually had to volunteer
to go to Vietnam. And the reason I did so was because my best friend in my battalion, Jack
Hips, came down on Levy for Vietnam. Inexpediently.
I figured if Jack was going to Vietnam, I wanted to go to Vietnam too. So I volunteered and
my paperwork was accepted. By this time there were no artillery units we had no US army
artillery units in Vietnam. We were down to a very low number of troops. The Army sent
me to eight weeks of Vietnam language school. I went to Fort Bragg to special with Special
Forces center and did advising school. And did Vietnamese language school. And I hit
Vietnam and they sent me up to the central highlands where I worked with the
Montagnards, who did not speak Vietnamese.
I was able to use my college French and I also had two interpreters we got along fine. But I
was there primarily just to tag along with the district chief who was a Montagnards, who
was a lieutenant coronel. Especially I was there to show the flag and report back to our
headquarters. As I mentioned earlier the day after I got to my ultimate assignment up in the
highlands. The only other American who was there went on a raid and never came back.
Now, I don't blame him. This was his second tour of Vietnam, and he felt like he had paid his
dues, the war was winding down, and when he got back from his raid he stayed at the
provincial headquarters. I got there with all my new best friends. The sense of isolation, I
was surrounded by people who didn't speak the same language, didn’t have the big cultural
gab. But I got along with them.
BH: That's good. You've covered where you were stationed and what your jobs were.
What was it like when you arrived in Vietnam, How did the locals treat you?
RO: The first thing, when we got off the plane, was the heat and humidity, ha-ha. I mean I
3
�don't know if you've spent any time in Southe ast Asia but you can, its very difficult to
describe the heat and humidity.
BH: I mean it can get pretty hot down here
RO: And also, we landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base in Saigon. And they put us on
these armored busses with uh bars on the windows to keep the grenades from getting in.
So there was some tension. And because this was my first combat assignment,
intellectually, I knew it could be dangerous. But until I got off the plane and they put us on
this vehicle with these bar on it.
Everyone was running around outside with a weapon. Then I started to say, "this is the
real stuff'. But then when I went to a replacement station called Camp Alpha, where they
decided what they were going to do with me. Uh, fortunately I had run into another
Citadel graduate who had actually been at my wedding. So he kind of took care of me for a
day or two while we were in Saigon.
BH: it's a small world, did you always feel like you had to be on your toes and you were in
danger, Or were these bars on the bus for example just a precaution.
RO: I guess there had been some attacks, so this was a prurient precaution. After awhile
you don't ever get used to it, But I mean I tried not to become obsessed with fear and have
the ability of my actions be ruled by that. I knew there were risks in involved. But I felt like
as long as I was with the district chief, who had a security attachment with him.
BH: Faith in your commanders. So, did you ever see combat as an artillery advisor?
RO: Not as an artilleryman; you know, I heard shots fired in anger while I was over
there, particularly on the last night. The night before the cease-fire went into effect was my
worst.
BH: Before the Tet.
RO: Not before Tet, this was after Tet. This was in 1973. Tet occurs every year in mid
January. Tet is the kind of like the Chinese Lunar. And it's a big deal in all of Southeast
Asia. Whenever anyone hears about Tet they think about 1968, when we were caught with
our pants down. When I was over there in the Tet of 1973, for all intensive purposes the
war was almost over.
I was still out there until the cease- f i r e . As you might be aware of, at the Paris Peace
Conferences, when our side or their side negotiated the peace treaty that was to go into
effect in mid or late January, in 1973. Well in the days and weeks leading up to that. There
was a push to grab land. Because there beliefs that if our flag was on it then it is our
territory. So in the weeks and days preceding the cease- f i r e went into effect at 8 in the
morning, uh, the South Vietnamese government was putting flags all over the place. The
night before the cease- f i r e was ...and I'll show you some pictures if you’re interested
BH: Absolutely.
4
�RO: Pictures of what our camp looked like. I don't want to say I was fearful, maybe a little
apprehensive and anxious. And I knew were going to see some action that night. In fact I
had written a letter to my wife expressing concern about how, it was like "Pardon me, I'm the
only American out here. Were probably going to be hit, etc.” I got that letter on a
helicopter before it took off, and so then I went around the perimeter. And again these were
Montagnards RFPR (Regional Force, Popular Force), you know, kind of irregular forces.
And they were out there on the perimeter. And they've got their families with them out
there (ha-ha) And I'm just thinking, what is going to happen if a family member gets hit. Is
that soldier going to fight harder because of that or is he going to leave his position to go
take care of his family member.
Anyway so we go, so we're waiting. Sure enough as the sun goes down, and it was a dark
night, and we didn't have any of that nice night vision glasses that I was talking about, and
uh, it was particularly dark that night too. And the firing started. And uh, we had two
105mm howitzers in our compound that the South Vietnamese army manned. And
someone had the great idea that they were going to crank the tubes up to the maximum
elevation and they were going to fire an illumination round.
And that’s a valid technique, self-illumination. And uh, there was a big explosion as the
round fired and the illumination round goes up and you hear a little pop as the flare base
ejects out of the 105 round, and it kind of just floated down. And the 105 illumination
round is just pitiful, but you can see a little something out there. And because of the light,
you felt a little bit better, but then the flares hit the ground before they could completely
burn out.
BH: Oh no...
,
RO: This was late January during the dry season, and they had not done a good job of
clearing the debris, so the next thing we know we've got a wall of flame coming our
direction and sense we had already been fired on and the artillery was firing, small arms
firing, a sheet a flame coming at us, and the claymore mines start going off and the fear
factor was starting to go up just a bit. But God was good, and the next morning when the
sun came up and the smoke cleared, we were all still alive.
BH: I can't even imagine.
RO: The Vietcong had, been busy (Olson is retrieving a Vietnamese helmet and a flag
from within the helmet). This is a Vietcong flag that was pulled out of the perimeter
wire. One of the Montagnards went out and collected it as a souvenir for me. So then at 8:00
in the morning cease-fire went live. And within a couple of days I left there and went back
to the providence headquarters and reversed the process. I went from the providence
headquarters down to the camp Alpha in Saigon, turned in my weapons, because I had been
issued an M16 when I got to Vietnam. And I carried that everywhere. When I got to my
alternant assignment I got my 45 as well. So when I show you these pictures later on, you'll
see me carrying an M16 and a 45 as well. I always kind of felt that the M16 was a piece of
5
�plastic. But it was always kind of comforting having that big 45 right next to you.
BH: I'm sure. So how close were you to normally t o 105 artillery to the front line?
RO: Well, the 105 artillery is right now our smallest artillery piece. It has a range of about
10 miles, you know 15 km. In order to be effective, it has to be pretty close to the front
lines. Now the 155 mm howitzer that we have today has a rocket-assisted projectile that will
kick it to a range of 20 plus miles.
BH: That's impressive. So you were mainly advising, you weren't in charge of any planning
of battles
RO: Not while I was there. Again, there were combat units in the providence that I was
located. But they were all South Vietnamese units. We had two South Vietnamese
artillery pieces in our compound. And we would have interactions with them, because my
Vietnamese was quite good. "toy now tep nee ip net too???"....... (Olson is speaking in
Vietnamese) I mean I could handle it pretty good.
BH: This is going to be fun to transcribe (ha-ha).
RO: But I received them periodically. I had limited contact. My primary mission there was
to tag along with the district chiefs, eat the same food he ate, sleep with him wherever we
were. We went out sometimes and visited a village, and I'll show you pictures of this, but
the Montagnards they had their houses up on stilts. They were Montagnards long houses.
They might be 30-40 feet long, assume a room 30-40 feet long like this, and its up on
stilts.
About eight feet of the ground. For a number of reasons; snakes, scorpions, animals could
be underneath there for shelter and some protection against intruders. And we would go
out there and I would find myself you know, we're not going back to the compound, we're
staying here tonight. And then all of a sudden we’re sleeping on the bare floor with 30-40
complete strangers. No electricity, you wake up, wanting to go to the bathroom in the
middle of the night and you don't know where you are or anything. All you know is that
you're eight feet off the ground and you don't even know which end of the log house you
wanted to go out of (laughter).
BH: Its interesting to me that you were mostly surrounded by South Vietnamese friendlies
and you don't have many American soldier with you except for the generals that you were
talking about.
RO: The only Americans were back at the providence headquarters, and again, we dropped
our force structure down. There was a lieutenant colonel that was the providence senior
advisor, and he had a couple of majors and a couple of captains and one force lieutenant. He
also had a couple of civilians that were in charge of various pacification programs.
6
�BH: That makes sense. So, I notice that you got a lot of medals, very impressive metals
for that matter. Can you describe how you got maybe your favorite one? Or how you got
one.
RO: I don't know if I have a favorite one or not. A couple of those were combat awards.
The Vietnamese Service Medal and the Vietnamese Campaign Medal those two medals
were primarily for everyone who got off the plane, we get those for stepping a foot on
south Vietnamese soil. The other two awards are the Bronze Star and the Vietnamese
Cross of Gallantry. And I had to do something to get those.
BH: Is there a nice story behind it, or?
RO: Just doing my job. The Bronze Star was a US award the Vietnamese Cross of
Gallantry was presented by the Vietnamese.
BH: My question is how did soldiers entertain themselves? But what I'm now
wondering about is what was the difference between the American and Vietnamese
soldier in how they entertained themselves?
RO: Interesting. This is brining back a flood of memories. My contact with the outside
world was a PRC 2500 radio. We got this bamboo and made some pitiful antennas up. And
if the weather conditions, or conditions were right, I could talk back to the providence
headquarters. And I would generally just make a convo check in the morning and a convo
check at night and I would also have a shortwave radio that I brought with me so that I
could get radio Saigon.
We would be out in rural South Vietnam. No paved roads, no electricity, we had a
generator, but we would only want to run it for an hour or two at night. I would read. But
the Montagnards, particularly the district chiefs, they loved to play Gin Rummy.
Often we would spend an hour or two at night. The district chief who was a colonel, one
of my interpreters, a good interpreter. We had two interpreters, one of which we used as
the cook. And uh normally one of his officers and us would just sit around and play cards.
Often minor stakes.
But it was really impressive because often times the Montagnards were very stoic, but
when they were playing Gin Rummy, I mean they would just go (Olson imitates an
exaggerated way that the Montagnards would throw down their cards). This is kind of
disgusting by the way, but one of the highlights of my week. We had a latrine that
periodically we had to keep the mosquitoes down and clean up. So we would go out there
and pour a can of gasoline. And I always wanted to do that, I wanted to be the one to do
that (laughter) so I would go out there and do that with the gasoline and shout “Everybody
back! It would go "Phhhfew!" (explosion noise)
BH: Literal meaning “fire in the hole,” I guess
RO: Ha-ha, yeah I liked that. There were a couple of other funny things that happened.
7
�BH: Were there ever any pranks that got pulled?
RO: Yes. One pops in my head. Again, this was near the end. And was starting to get a little
tense. And I knew the end was coming there. And so I would go into the latrine, and I had
taken my helmet and my flak vest, and my M16; which I normally didn't do. I was
in the latrine and the artillery started firing for one reason or another. And then my
interpreter took some gravel, and threw it on the roof of the latrine. And time it so that,
again there was so much going on, you don't have time to think.
And all of a sudden you hear these explosions and stuff. And I thought that it might have
been incoming. And I Should have know better. The sound of a round going out is
unbelievably different from then one coming in. There is just no comparison. I grabbed
my steal pot and my flak vest, and my M16. And I run out there in my boxer shorts and
flip-flops. And he and his buddies are standing there going "Ha-ha-ha!" and they took a
picture (laughter) and I can show you that picture if you want to.
BH: I'd love to. That's great.
RO: That was one prank. Another funny thing and this was not intended to be a funny
thing. I share this story with my students. Again, I would go along with the district advisor,
and eat and drink whatever he ate and drank. We went out one day. And we were
squatting around as Asians do, around a large pot drinking rice wine through a straw, a big
straw, you know. All of a sudden I hear this terrible squeal.
I look over my shoulder and I see they are butchering a little pig next to me. And they burn
the flesh and take the intestines and grab one end and go "Pshhhshhh." They cut intestines
up into pieces about that long (about an inch) and threw it in a pot of water for about five
minutes and then served it up as hors d'oeuvres. And sense I was the only white face there.
They kind of come to me first. And there are about 30-40 sets of eyes watching me. And I
say to myself, ''I'm not going to... I can handle this." So I grab some and put it I my mouth.
And it was like chewing rubber bands. The more I chewed, the larger it got in my mouth. So
finally, I made the supreme sacrifice and just swallowed it. And then for the next week or
two I stressed out about getting trichinosis or some kind of intestinal disease, but I turned
out okay. But that’s kind of a funny story and I like sharing it with folks. Montagnards
chitins.
BH: Sounds good. I'll look for it at the grocery market (laughter). So, you said
you got to share food with other officers, how did that compare to the food
the privates had to eat.
RO: When I was with the Montagnards I ate pretty much whatever they ate;
lots of rice. In fact when I got back from Vietnam, I did not eat very much rice.
But I like it now. Being from the south, you would think that I would like rice,
but I maxed out on rice. When I was not in Vietnam as a battery commander, I
tried to be scrupulous. I did not take advantage of my position. I tried to eat the
8
�same food the soldier ate, and I tried to eat towards the tail end. Particularly as
a battery commander, before I would eat I would wait for the soldiers.
It wasn’t always possible as a battery commander, because there were soldier everywhere.
BH: was this something you learn from your training or was this just
something you decided to do?
RO: I personally think that it was part of being a leader. I think it is very
important that uh, not only do leaders share in hardships of their soldier, but
they have to be seen sharing in the hardships of soldiers. When I was in the
10th mountain division wide infantry, being in a light infantry unit 10-12 mile
long marches were a big deal. Obstacle courses were big deals. And so fourmile runs were big deals as a battalion, I would always make sure I was
leading the way on that.
RO: (Directed to Laura Hedgepath, who was a former student of Colonel
Olson at JM Robison High School). Laura, did you know in the spring of 2010,
that I crossed the 25,000 mile mark in my runners journal?
LH: Yes
RO: (To Laura) Did you see the picture of that?
LH: I did, very cool.
BH: I saw it on your website, that's amazing. That's something I could never do.
RO: You'd be surprised, one step at a time. Anyway that’s just...I think it’s
important that officers lead by example. And an officer is not always going to
be the best at every category. But he should be above average at every
category. No matter what it is. Whether it be running or the obstacle course
firing the M16, M9 pistol, it doesn’t matter.
BH: That makes sense. So what was your understanding during the war of
why America had chosen to invade?
RO: Invade!? (Olson makes a buzzing sound to exploit my folly)
BH: Right, not invade, but chosen to take part in this war in Vietnam. I
mean sense you have learned a bit after the war, has your opinion of why
this was such an important war we needed to fight changed or evolved?
RO: I'm still conflicted about that. At the time, I really didn't question it. And
again, it’s easy for us today with the benefit of hindsight. To criticize our
involvement in Vietnam. At the time, the communist threat was real, and
9
�remember I was born in ‘47. This week or in a day or two would start the
anniversary of the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. And I was 15 years
old when the churches of my hometown in South Carolina went on 24-hour
day, seven days a week prayer vigil as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. And
that was serious stuff; Berlin Wall, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet
Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
BH: A very scary time in domestic America.
RO: Oh yes, and don't forget what's happening in domestic America: Lyndon
Johnson announced he was not running for President, Tet of 1968, Robert F.
Kennedy's assassination, Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, race riots,
we've got the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Richard Nixon elected
President.
So at the time the Communist threat was real. And again, I supported the war
because a lot of my friends were already over there. I lost classmates from the
Citadel in Vietnam. The thought of not supporting the war just did not occur to
me. I have studied this a lot in the intervening years. And I can now see how
we kind of backed into the war.
We never had a clear strategy, a clear goal. It was a failure of our political
leaders to articulate our military to do I totally believe in civilian control of the
military. But I think that it was a political failure our leaders did not have a
clear desire to end state, stop the spread of communism. Maybe that was
legitimate at the time.
BH: Interesting. I think its going to be a long time before we can truly
understand why. What was the first thing you wanted to do when you got
home?
RO: I wanted to hug and kiss my wife (laughter).
BH: So what was actually the first thing you did when you got home?
RO: I called my wife and said "Why weren't you out here to pick me up!?" (laughter)
BH: That's funny.
RO: There was some confusion about when the plane would arrive because I
landed in Los Angeles. And then had a couple of stops before I landed in
Greensboro airport. My wife was still a senior…no she had graduated college.
She was in graduate school to get her Masters in Education. So there was a
little bit of confusion about when the plane was going to arrive.
10
�BH: Do you have a favorite military book or movie on this conflict?
RO: I have several favorite military books and movies. One of my favorite
military movies is "Zulu". This was, are you familiar with an actor, Michael
Kane?
This was Michael Kane's first movie, but it was made back in the 1960s, in South
Africa. The Brits had been fighting the Bores, fighting the Zulus. Because of the climatic
parts of the movie is when the Welch units were about to be overrun by thousands of Zulus.
They start singing "Men of Harlech," which was an original song. It popped in my head. I go
crazy. I have the whole class sing along. Two other movies I like, "Black Hawk Down." I saw
that movie with my son, when it first came out. It touched me on several levels, I actually had
to sit down outside after we walked out of the theater.
A couple of years later, we had a terrorist situation in New Deli, India. Not in New Deli, I was
stationed in New Deli; we had a terrorist incident in Kashmir, India. Where Islamic terrorists
kidnapped some western backpackers and for about a month we figured they would let them
go like they have all of the others. But then they beheaded a Norwegian hostage and carved
the initials of their organization on his chest to show they meant business. And about 36
hours later, I'm at the New Deli airport with my new best friends from Delta Force. Less than
24-hours later, I was in Kashmir.
I barely have time to write my wife a note saying, "Hey, I don't know when I'll be back, pray
for me." I went up there with some guys from Delta Force. The Brits sent two guys from the
SAS and the Germans sent two guys from the GSG9. For a couple of months up there we tried
to help the Indians rescue the hostages. We were not successful. Anyway, I got to know the
guys from Delta Force pretty good. And there was no choice. They can be fairly closed mouth
about what they do, but when you're with them for 24 hours a day for an extended period of
time, they seem to open up a little. The lieutenant colonel who ran the Mogadishu mile. Are
you familiar with the movie Black Hawk Down?
BH: Yes.
RO: Well, when they run that last mile from the city to where the Pakistanis were, that
called the “ Moga mile” (Mogadishu mile). So I like that movie a lot. But a movie about
Vietnam that I like and I've read the book as well, was "we were soldiers once" talking
about the war. And the movie focuses on the first half the book, which was a success
story, the second half of the book talks about an ambush of another unit.
BH: Leave it to Hollywood to make a feel good movie.
RO: I am a veracious reader. One book I just finished, I just read it on my Kindle. And I
liked it so much that I wanted a hard copy. So this is Stonewall Jackson and the American
Civil War by a British Colonel that was written around 1900. I liked it so much that I just
had to get a hard copy so that I can bookmark it and bring to class and show my
students. Stonewall Jackson is just an unbelievable. He was mortally wounded in
11
�Chancellorsville. Because if he had lived there, then the south might have won. And even
though I pride my southern tradition. It would not have been a good thing if the south
had avoided defeat in the Civil War.
BH: My last question…how did the military service affect your life. Was it for the good
or the bad?
RO: Well the Jury is probably still out (laughter) I'm proud of my military service; it gave
me the chance to travel a lot. My wife and I have spent many years overseas. Germany,
Vietnam, Australia I was the school of artillery instructor in Sydney. In Asia, I served in
several different tours. Spent three and a half years in Bangladesh, four and a half years in
India on different tours. When I wasn’t doing artillery jobs, I worked as a defense attaché in
our embassy in Dacca Bangladesh as the lieutenant colonel and New Deli as a full colonel.
Being in the military definitely gave me the ability to see a lot of the world. The army also
sent me to graduate school at the University of Georgia. I got my masters in Soviet Studies
and Geography.
BH: Is there anything you would like to add that we didn't cover today?
RO: No. I appreciate you coming and I enjoyed you coming and getting to know you and
getting to see Laura again.
BH: Well, I appreciate getting to know you.
RO: God bless.
12
�
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.
Olson, Russell
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Hedgepath, Ben
Interview Date
10/15/11
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
41:43 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
Oakland, California, Vietnam, Army, officer, field artillery, Citadel, Germany, Fort Drum, India, Special Forces, Fort Bragg, adviser in Vietnam, Montagnards, Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base, Saigon, Vietcong, Bronze Star, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, Vietnamese Service Medal, Vietnamese Campaign Medal
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 Russell Olson, 15 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Olson, Russell, 1947
Veterans
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Russell Olson Jr., born August 3, 1947, served as a field artillery officer in the U.S. Army for 30 years, including service in Vietnam. In this interview he discusses the draft for the Vietnam war and his personal experience, including living with the Montagnards in the highlands of Vietnam.
Creator
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Olson, Russell
Hedgepath, Ben
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
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12 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
colonel
Field Artillery Officer
Russell V. Olson Jr.
Saigon
US Army
Vietnameseization