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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.
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�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
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�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
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�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.
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�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
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�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.
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�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.
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�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
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�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
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�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.
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�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
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�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.
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�
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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
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
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
The size or duration of the resource.
12 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
colonel
Field Artillery Officer
Russell V. Olson Jr.
Saigon
US Army
Vietnameseization