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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
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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
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Lingo, Joseph
Interviewee
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Collins, Tom
Interview Date
10/14/2012
Number of pages
12
Duration
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0:51:50
Date digitized
2/5/2015
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a86579bd35619a295936d42d1f3c7e29
142d6d37781e4065eace3aded14cf064
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Leah McManus
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Adobe Acrobat XI Pro
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300
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Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used.
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UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
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48000kzh x 16 bit
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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]
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Oral History
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English
English
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Lingo, Joseph
Collins, Tom
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<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
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/ed4482511c116295a2ac66225ed4597a.pdf
741a45f0a32b28beab0186ed7cd5cdb5
PDF Text
Text
Transcript of Oral History Interview with CPL. Lloyd L. Hoover, Jr.
October 8, 2012.
Boone, NC
Brandon Reynolds: It is Monday, October 8, 2012. I am interviewing Corporal
Lloyd L. Hoover, Jr. of Charlotte, North Carolina at his home here in Boone, North
Carolina for American Military History Course at Appalachian State University.
The oral history will begin now.
Reynolds: Now, Corporal Hoover, can you tell me about where you’re
from?…When you were born?
Hoover: I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on June the 18, 1929.
Reynolds: All right and can you go over your military service? Were you originally
drafted or were you enlisted into the Army?
Hoover: …I was drafted on…April the 26, 1951.
Reynolds: How did you feel about being drafted? What was the process that you
went through?
Hoover: Well, I didn’t have any option. I…I had to go and…a lot of my friends
had already been drafted to…prior to me being drafted and…so, …I…I knew my
time was up and…I…reported to…to the draft board on the morning I was…by the
time I was supposed to.
Reynolds: Now, where was your first duty station? Can you go over your first unit
of assignment and where you attended basic training at?
Hoover: Well after I reported in to the draft board they…marched us…down the
street to…to the recruiting center…at the…corner of…Church Street and…North
Church Street and…West…West Seventh Street. …Spent most of the day…going
through different…parts of the…the process and procedures and then about…I
think around 3:30 or 4:00 that afternoon they loaded us on buses and took us
to…Fort Jackson, South Carolina where we were to…do further processing.
…The…we got there…on…it was a Thursday night…and…the next day
they…processed us in different…different…things that needed to be done
and…two or three days later they began to…get us in formation and we’d call out
names and those men would fall out and…they would…tell them they were going
1
�to different…stations through…throughout the United States for their basic
training. It was on a Friday a week after…I…I was drafted, on Friday they
told…those of us that remained there at Fort Jackson that…we would leave on
Saturday morning to go to Fort Hood, Texas for our…basic training. So,
on…Saturday morning…they…we fell out with our duffel bags and I think we had
duffel bag inspections for probably two or three times…while we were waiting
for…for the train, troop train to get there to that we got on and…later that day we
went through Atlanta, Georgia and…on Sunday morning we were…I woke
up…in…in the…car that I was in and pulled the shade up and looked out and saw
that I was in Meridian, Mississippi and…I said, Muuur goodness where am I
going? (Reynolds laughs). But, …that…we continued to travel…all day Sunday
and then…Monday morning…we found we were in Dallas, Texas and…later
Waco and on down to…Killeen, Texas where Fort Hood was located…and
they…took us…by bus over to…a theatre where the Commanding General came in
and…talked to us and after he finished his talk, they began to…go down the…the
rows and…stop at…a different row and say, “Everybody from…front to this
row… file out,” and… they’d go outside and put them on a bus and take them to
wherever they…they were headed. …So, when they got to…my row, I was on the
first row of our group and they took us and…I wound up in the barracks and found
out it was in the 91st Armored Field Artillery Battalion. And…so I took basic
training with the…91st and…until…the…at lunch…lunch one day
they…took…called out names and told us to fall out that the…Battery Commander
the Captain wanted to talk to each one of us individually about going to…Officers
Candidate School…and…I had passed the Officers…OCS Test that…at Fort
Jackson and…so, when my time came…I reported in…went in to the…Captain
and reported in to him and he began to talk to me about going to Officers
Candidate School and…wanted to know if I was interested in it and I told him, No,
I don’t believe I was, that I didn’t…want to go to Officers Candidate School, that I
had been drafted for twenty-one months and I’d been in four weeks and they’d
transfer…they extended our…term to twenty-four months, that I’d already lost
my…some more time and that going to Officers Candidate School I’d be in
another…another…year. I believe it was a year and a half or two years, and I
wanted to get out to…as…as soon as I could. And…he looked at me and smiled
said…, “Well…when you came into the Army there…in…in civilian life there
wasn’t any demand for cannoneers and anyone was experienced as a cannoneer
and I assure you when you get out and go back to civilian life there wont be
any…demand for cannoneers,”…and asked me what I did in…civilian life and I
told him I was a…bank teller and…that I’d like to…get in finance if I could and
that…that might help me in my…my future if I…I…I had that…experience of
being in the…Army Finance…Department. So, he had the First Sergeant call
2
�the…finance Officer and…the Captain talked to…the… finance Officer told him
that he had a young man that was interested in getting into the finance office if…he
had an opening. The finance Officer said he did have an opening and he’d like for
him to send me up for an interview that afternoon. So, the Captain told me to… go
change my uniform and… told me how to get to the finance office. I went up for
the interview. …Had a good interview with the…finance Officer and he…wanted
to know when I could come and I told him, “Well, as soon as I finish my basic
training I…I hope,” and…he said, …“Well, we’ll get in touch…you need to go by
the replacement center and we’ll call down and have you put on orders to…be
transferred from the 91st to…when you finish basic training to the…Headquarters
and Headquarters Company, so that you can…come to work in the finance office.”
So, …that’s how I got in to…to…to…in the finance office and…they made…a
cashier out of me, where I was paying…the…Army’s funds to the soldiers that
were…going overseas, or travel pay, …or…or been redlined on payday and came
in to…get… paid when they came back from furlough, or whatever reason they
missed…being paid on payday. So, …then…the…the Captain in the finance office
and myself, we…on…when payday came around we’d get the…pay orders from
the different…sections for the…all the different units in the 1st Armored Division
and we had to make up the payrolls to give to the pay Officer that…would come in
on payday and…pick up…their…their bag of…money to distribute to the soldiers
that were under their command. And…then they would bring it back…later that
day and we’d…I’d have to…verify what they were bringing back and what they’d
paid out. And…during the…time that I was cashier in…in the finance
office…I...handle…millions of dollars of…of money and paid out quite a bit and I
was only short one time. I was short eighteen cents. I’d given somebody two dimes
for…for two pennies. I made a transposition and…so, …that was the only time
that…I was short…in…in my funds.
Reynolds: That’s pretty incredible in itself handling millions of dollars and only
coming up eighteen cents short. Can you go over…your military history, maybe
with your family?
Hoover: Well, after…I...I got to Fort Hood and was assigned in…in to the finance
office, …I spent…my time there and…the rumor was that…1st Armored Division
was going to Germany to replace the 3rd Armored Division at some time
in…around February, March, or April of 1952. …Found that out…my fiancé and
I…I decided that…I’d come home on furlough in February and…be married
and…I’d gone overseas…probably. But, …we were married on February the 9,
1952 and…went back to Fort Hood and found that…well, after I got back that the
word was that we were not going to Germany, that we were going to make a
3
�replacement center out of…the 1st Armored Division. So, …I…we stayed at Fort
Hood…the…rest…of…the time except for three months when I was sent to…Fort
Benjamin Harrison in…Indianapolis, Indiana to Army Finance School there. I was
there…a…a…a little over three months and then…transferred back to…went back
to Fort Hood. But my wife Joan met me…in Indianapolis and we took a train back
to Dallas, Texas where she stayed with her Aunt and Uncle until I could get an
apartment…in Killen, Texas, which was…just outside of the Fort Hood
and…reservation. And…we lived in Killeen…moved into another
apartment…several months later. But, we stayed there until I was discharged
on…on April the 25, 1953.
Reynolds: How did you feel about finally being discharged from the Army?
Hoover: Well, I…I felt…some relief that I was going back to…to…to Charlotte
and…my…back to the bank that…that I’d worked at and…now having a wife and
looked forward to going back where my family lived and…that it was…it was a
good thing…I…I…I can’t say I enjoyed all parts of…of…of my military service,
but…it was…it taught me a lot about life and a lot about how to live and how to do
things. And…I think it made me…a better person.
Reynolds: Will you go over some…some of your memories while you were at Fort
Hood? Whether they were funny memories or kind of scary memories. Maybe
being out in the field experiences with that.
Hoover: Well, …we got to…Fort Hood around May the 7th I believe it was
and…it…turned out that after we started our basic training it turned out to be a
rainy…rainy part of the season. The…heat was usually…over a hundred…a
hundred degrees and with the rain and…crawling around on the ground and…out
in the field. …Different things that just…it…it was tough, but…to me it…basic
training was to see…how much the…human body and mind
could…could…could…could withstand. And…I remember going to…through the
infiltration course…at…at night. And it rained…torrential rain about an hour
before we…we got there. So, the...the course was…was muddy and full…full of
water. But crawling under that barbed wire with…weapon in…in your…arms and
hands and shooting tracers above your head and setting off charges that threw
water and mud up (laughs)…up in the air all over you (laughs) (Reynolds
laughs)…it was…that was a…that was a real experience. …Going through
the…gas chamber…and take…taking off the gas mask and…having to get
everybody in line. Some of them were crying and yelling and…stumbling around,
but…several of us got them…had to get some of them, grab them and put them in
4
�line before the Sergeant would let us leave to get out into the fresh air. Well, we
didn’t do it exactly right, so they made us do it again (Reynolds laughs). So,
…that…that wasn’t very pleasant either.
Reynolds: Not at all.
Hoover: But it was…it was…it was a good experience.
Reynolds: Are there any moments in particular that stick out in your mind while
you were at Fort Hood? Any…maybe any awards or activities you did on base?
Hoover: Well, being the cashier in the finance office there was one thing that…I
believe it was the…United Way Drive…at…at Fort Hood. …I would receive the
money that was coming…coming in from…from different areas to go to the
United Way. And…I would have to count the money…make a…make a…make a
record of it and so forth and turn in a report. And after it was over, …I received a
letter of commendation from…General Bruce Clarke, who was the Commanding
General of the 1st Armored Division, …commending me for the work that I had
done…in helping the…the United Way Drive. Then one that was…sort of comical
was…I played baseball…two years…both years I was there. And…we had
the…post championship baseball team both years. And…the first year…it was the
World Series…at Fort Hood and…we…when we won the…the game
championship game, General Clarke was there to…give the…the players of the
winning team…a sweater that had the initials…FH on it for Fort Hood. Then we
could wear it around the base…after duty. And…then he gave us a…a medal to
recognizing that we were the…post champions. Well, the…one of my teammates
Joe Wade…worked in the finance office as well, so we’re in the same barracks and
the next morning when we fell out for…for…for inspection, we had put
our…medals…on…on…onto our shirts. And when the inspecting Officer came
down the…the line and got to…to me and he…looked at…looked at me and said,
…“What in the world is that?” I said that’s my medal Sir (Reynolds laughs). He
said, “Medal for what?” Medal for winning the…being the post…championship
baseball team. I was on the team. “Well, who gave it to you?” I said, …General
Clarke did Sir. “When?” I said last night. (laughs) He looked at me and he said,
“Hmmm, that is a nice looking medal, but I don’t believe it’s appropriate on your
shirt. I think it may be better to take it off and leave it in the barracks (Reynolds
laughing). So, …that…that was a humorous thing that…that took place and…I
didn’t get…any extra duty of detail for doing that either.
5
�Reynolds: Well that’s…that’s not too bad either. I know those details can be
quite…quite painful sometimes and not everyone…
Hoover: Yea.
Reynolds: …wants to do them. Is there anything else that sticks out in your mind
during your time at Fort Hood? I know you were drafted during the Korean War. Is
that correct?
Hoover: Well, it wasn’t a Korean War because…war…if I remember correctly,
war was never declared. And it…I think as…it’s mostly referred to as the Korean
Conflict. And…I remember that…that…word came back that some of the
troops…that…that…that we had known through basic training at Fort Hood…had
gone on to Korea and some of them lost their lives…in…in Korea. And…that
hurts to…know that someone that was close to you to at one time had…had lost
their life. And…I did have a cousin from down in Florida that…was…in…in
Korea…and…his…mother…he was in a…a news reel in a movie theatre. Mother
saw…saw his picture and…saw her son.
Reynolds: Oh wow.
Hoover: …And it was at during a real cold part of winter and…he suffered some
frost…frostbite…bite and other things from…from that. Now my father, he was in
the…First World War. But, …he was a drafted…late…late in the war and was sent
to…France and to Germany…in the Occupational Forces and he was over there
about eight months I believe it was before…he was sent back to the states and was
discharged and went back to his home.
Reynolds: Well, upon that note…is there anything you would like to mention right
now that I haven’t asked so far in the interview that you would like to state?
Hoover: No…I think that…if more young men would…serve…have to go through
basic training and serve some time in the service, whatever…area of service
they…they would be in, then it might make…make…make…our…our people
better to…to find out what…devotion to…to duty and…to be able to take orders
and to…have responsibility and be…be held accountable for…for what
they…what they do. That…we…our…our nation would be better off.
6
�Reynolds: Well CPL Hoover, I want to thank you for your time with this interview
and once again I’m Brandon Reynolds conducting an interview with CPL Lloyd L.
Hoover, Jr. …United States Army. I want to thank you for your time.
Hoover: Your welcome.
Reynolds: Thank you. Bye.
7
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/74a4f1ab15debbe101d72a4d49f53345.mp3
a1cbd4df2543951463b94f5b330a4323
Dublin Core
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Title
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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
41.3 KB
25.1 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
military branch (U.S. Army, etc)
U.S. Army
Officer Rank
Officer rank (major, private, etc)
Corporal
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Reynolds; Brandon
Hoover; Lloyd L.; Jr.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Reynolds, Brandon
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Hoover, Lloyd L., Jr.
Interview Date
10/8/2012
Number of pages
7
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:21:59
Date digitized
10/15/2012
Checksum
alphanumeric code
970d5c985c5d0e6cda8407d860eea525
a1cbd4df2543951463b94f5b330a4323
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.
Source
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UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
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48000kzh x 16 bit
Format, original
Electronic File
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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5018_Hoover_Lloyd_20121008_transcript_M
5018_Hoover_Lloyd_20121008_audio_A
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Corporal Lloyd L. Hoover, Jr [October 8, 2012]
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Language
A language of the resource
English
English
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Reynolds, Brandon
Hoover, Lloyd L., Jr.
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
Corporal Lloyd Hoover was drafted in the early 1950s and served in the Army Finance Department managing millions of dollars. He served during the Korean War, what he calls the Korean Conflict, and saw his military years as a good and formative experience.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hoover, Lloyd L., Jr.
Veterans
Korean War, 1950-1953
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
1951
Army Finance Department
Artillery Battalion
Corporal Lloyd Hoover
draft
Fort Hood
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/d39503147dcd02e0b5d5af5a60ec8377.pdf
fdc07aab56631b4e17745e4304ac1520
PDF Text
Text
Name:
Branch:
Years Served:
Conflicts:
Date of Interview:
Samuel McNeill
U.S. Army
1952-1954
Korean War
October 14, 2012
Jackson Sams: Today is October the 14th and we are interviewing Sam McNeill in his home in
Candor North Carolina. Sam can you...Sorry this is for a history class at Appalachian State
University and my name is Jackson Sams. Sam can you go ahead and tell me your birth date?
McNeill: 7-11-31
Jackson Sams: Ok and other people attending are Coy McNeill, Sam's son and my stepfather.
Sam can you go ahead and tell me the war and branch you served in.
McNeill: I served in the army in Korea and I was in the quarter master. I was in the service
center there, service center number two. We serviced textile goods for the second and third
division and the fifth regimental combat team, and I believe there’s some other Ethiopian outfit
there as well as a Turkish outfit there that we issued supplies to. like I said it was a quarter
masters center textile mostly clothing, armored vests, tents, cots, things like that soldiers used
over in Korea and if item brought in could be repaired we repaired it like clothing or armored
vest or whatever if it couldn’t be repaired we issue them a new one. a new whatever and also
showers there where loads of soldiers would come in from the line and they would shower and
they had new they issue them new clothes there they leave there’s and issue them clean clothes
to leave in and they'd do that every so often and we had in our compound we had a tailor shop an
armor vest shop, tent shop, they had stove shop to repair or issue new stove small or large ones
and machines shop to repair anything that the machine shop could repair, small items. and there i
stayed there for 16 months took a break and went to Japan take a weekend sometimes and go
down to Seoul or Dong Won Po, where our headquarters was.
Sams: Ok
McNeill: and (...) what was pretty much it for 16 months
Sams: Wow that seems like quite a job. Do you remember your rank while you while you were
in Korea?
McNeill: I was a corporal
Sams: A corporal ok
McNeill: yeah
1
�Sams: And now what was where was the exact place you served?
McNeill: Its right at the center of right back of the 38th parallel we had a service center to the
left of us number one we were number 2 in the center and there was another number three over
on the mountainous side (...) where you have the Sea of Japan coming in over there and that seas
between I guess that’s what you call the sea between Korea and Japan.
Sams: Ok, now when you were in Korea, I know Coy has told me stories but can you tell me
exactly why you went were you enlisted or did you join yourself?
McNeill: I was drafted.
Sams: So you were drafted?
McNeill: I was drafted, I didn’t join, no.
Sams: ok
McNeill: I went in in the fall of 52' and got out of in the fall of 54' and (...) seemed like a more
than 16 months but that’s what it was over there not counting going coming. (...)
Sams: Now while you when you were drafted where were you living at the time?
McNeill: In Moore County in Eagle Springs in Moore County [North Carolina]. And I went to
Raleigh to be examined when I was called I was called back to Raleigh again. You want me to
keep on talking?
Sams: Sure as much as you want
McNeill: went from Raleigh to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, stayed there a week while they
outfitted us with clothes. Then sent us up highway number one again on up through Raleigh to
Virginia we did a train and and (...) I’m having a blank...
Sams: That’s ok take your time
McNeill: thought I never would. Fort Lee, Virginia which is near, back this side of Richmond
right out from what is that town there... can’t pull it out.
Sams: Its fine you don’t...
McNeill: anyway its Fort Lee, Virginia we stayed there. We took basic and I don’t remember
exactly how many weeks but after basic training we stayed there and just moved on over to the
quarter master school... were we I was in the class studying textile repair. It was just a class room
filled with desks and sewing machines we learned to use the sewing machine to repair shirts and
pants things of that nature and (...) when I got to Korea I didn’t do any of that they had Koreans
civilians to do the repair work. I was just shop foreman I was over the shop I received and issued
2
�the armored vests was my shop and that’s what I did the whole time I was there. they had more
than armor vests they had the whole armor suit for the engineers that worked in mine fields and
things like that and the war they called a truce three months after I was there. They started
turning a lot of vests in and we had a pile as long as from here to that building. 100 foot and
highest piles of armor vests and we had to go through and grade them and save the good ones
and destroy the ones that wasn’t repairable and that took a long time after they signed the truce.
Coy McNeill: Didn’t you find body parts in some of those?
McNeill: yeah we had found body parts in some of those armor suits
Sams: Wow.
McNeill: Where the engineers use to set mine fields and take up mine fields you could
occasionally find something in there you didn’t want to see... but... after a while before I come
home we just practically without anything to do. it just kinda when the call the truce we just
mostly processed and turned in things and packaged them and get ready to send them to
somewhere else or back here.
Sams: Now when they called the truce sorry how many months did you say you were in Korea?
McNeill: I was there 16 but only three months while the fighting was going on
Sams: ok alright.
McNeill: It was a relief for it to stop you could sleep better you didn’t hear boom boom all night
long.
Sams: I bet that was good
McNeill: And...
Sams: Can you tell me some of the more memorable experiences you had? Maybe a funny story
or something that really stands out in your mind?
McNeill: the first week there before I was assigned to the armored vest shop. you didn’t have
anything to do they'd make you a shotgun guard on a truck that’s going to Dong Yong Po and
getting ammunition and hauling it across the 38th parallel and they'd have what you call a
shotgun you did that the first week you were there and then after you got your job like I did in
the armored vest shop I didn’t have to do that anymore that was the experiences that the roads
were puffy dust and it strangle you just be an inch thick in dust and stop along the way and snack
something it couldn’t get to a meal but you'd carry along something like I’m trying to think
packages we had then were K rations and C rations we would take and fix a drink or get crackers
and food out of a can.
3
�Sams: And is that what you ate a lot of times?
McNeill: that’s the first week I ate a lot of C rations.
Sams: How were those?
McNeill: they'd keep you alive and but then there wasn’t very tasty they weren’t good. And but
they were keep you going for longer than a week if you had to... I don’t know or if I’m suppose
to say this or not but when I got over there all the equipment they had was old World War Two
trucks ‘40 and ’41, ‘42 models and I was dumb founded I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and
we had alternators to make our electricity and they were old 4 cylinder—same engine as in a
jeep—old flat headed mackin motors four cylinder engine then after they signed the truce. they
started sending in new trucks automatic transmission GMCs new just didn’t have them when the
war was going on but after the war seems like we got plenty equipment.
Sams: That’s interesting
McNeill: our generators were we had four of those little four cylinder flat headed engines for a
generator to create electricity they could send us one diesel that would replace four of them.
Sams: O wow
McNeill: Produce the same amount of and the guys that had to stand by to repair them and keep
them going man it just it just made their job much easier they didn’t have to be working on
engines all the time they could just put fuel in them and set back and watch them produce.
Sams: That’s great, that sounds good.
McNeill: we had a funny saying we'd say that happened after Eisenhower become president and
we had all that all that old equipment we used when we fighting the war then when after we
signed the truce we were just swamped with new equipment and it didn’t add up to us over there
using it but that’s the way it was.
Sams: Now when you in Korea did you ever have contact with your family? Did you ever keep
up with them?
McNeill: Course some people would write every day some people write once a week some
people would write once a month I think I averaged I’d say three times a week anyway and when
I went on R&R to Japan I got to call home and talk to my folks and call Betty we were engaged
then and I called her and talked to her and woke her up in the middle of the night I wasn’t
thinking about the time difference and what time it was back here I just had a chance to call and
did it while I had a chance.
Sams: Right
4
�McNeill: But she was kinda groggy I woke her up
Sams: So I know you mentioned when you were on leave you went to Japan. What else would
you do while you were on leave?
McNeill: we go down to Seoul for three days sometimes the headquarters was right below there
in Dong Won Po but the old capital building for Korea was in Seoul and it was turned into a PX
for US soldiers it’s amazing what you could find to buy in there it just it just a department store
like you could find all kinda things you might want to send somebody a present home you could
find it there you had to look out ahead and get it while you were there and have it to mail at the
proper time but it was fun just going down there and walking through that and seeing what they
had and being able to buy that you needed put in a package and take it back with you. you could
get food or something that you might need that you didn’t have I’m not thinking of something. I
might get a better flashlight than the one I had issued to me
Sams: Ok, O Ok
McNeill: and things like that a razor shaving equipment and it was good to have of course in the
PX at the service center we had more than you might think for you had food, cigarettes, Tobacco,
some clothing that you might be able to wear but what was fun was they had two pump shotguns
in there and after you pulled guard you had the next day off and we could check those guns out
and go out pheasant hunting. We could always find a Korean that would be our bird dog for a
pack of cigarettes
Sams: O wow!
McNeill: and we'd scare him up and if we missed him he'd fly over a little hill this guy would
run around and flush him back over you so you could have another chance at him.
Sams: Wow
McNeill: And that was right much fun on maybe if you pull guard the night before you'd sleep til
12 and then go pheasant hunting that evening and it was real relaxing you could forget your job
and it wasn’t so aggravating for a day or two
Sams: That’s great.
McNeill: It was it was a relief from work but it got to where before I left you could get more
things in the PX at the service center than you could when I first went there. It was much more
comfortable after the truce was declared it was much, serving was much easier.
Coy McNeill: Ask him if he had any dentist over there.
Sams: I know that you had one story that I've hear about getting a tooth pulled could you share
that with us?
5
�McNeill: O yeah that was terrible. Wisdom teeth the first two come through and our bottom had
just broke and I was advised to get them pulled so we had to go up behind the third division
medics and man that was crude it was just an old tent and I do believe I sat on a stump and they
had two, two by fours nailed on the back of the stump and one this way to lay your head like that
and one fella held my head like that while the other chiseled what was left of those what was left
of the wisdom teeth out and man that that hurt and of course they give you what they had in your
hand and of course when you left they’d give you left they'd give you a hand full of ACP its
suppose to be the same thing as aspirin but we always said it weren't you'd have to take two to
make one aspirin back home
Sams: Right
McNeill: that’s what they give me I got back to my tent you want me to tell it all Coy?
Coy McNeill: Sure
Sams: You can talk as much as you want
McNeill: I didn’t get there in time for supper and I couldn’t eat anyway so when I was R&R in
Japan I got me a bottle of whiskey and I put it in my locker and I was hurting and I said I gonna
drink some whiskey and I drank a little too much and the next morning I woke up with my head
hanging off and blood just dripping and I thick headed and I couldn’t remember having a tooth
pulled and I said lord that whiskey created an ulcer I’m bleeding I’m bleeding from my stomach
and after while I got up and went out back and threw up and then cleared my head then I
remember having teeth pulled then the feeling was coming back but that was a prank I pulled on
myself taking too much whiskey for pain reliever after having them teeth pulled I got a good
scare from that the next morning when I woke up.
Sams: I bet so. Now, Now when you, when your service ended tell me kinda that experience and
did you come straight home or did you go back to Japan? Or how did you do that?
McNeill: we went to Pusan and stead of coming through Japan like we did coming we left yeah
the ship we went over on was an old converted liberty ship and its twenty four hundred troops on
it plus the crew so there’s probably 3000 people on it and the sea was rough and it rode rough but
coming back the ship come from Japan and it had some wife’s of men who were able to stay
with their husbands in Japan and most times there would be officers and their wives were already
on the ship when they stopped by Pusan and we loaded on but that was two stacker and it was
much more comfortable it rode... twice as good as the one going over it would cruise and not
beat you to death.
Sams: Right
6
�McNeill: And all of the all the dependents were on the top deck and we were on below deck but
really we would stay outside all day long and it was just it was just pleasant cruise coming home
on that big longer ship with two big engines that could just , just more comfortable.
Sams: That’s great. Now when you came home did you come through San Francisco or.
McNeill: We did we came there and got there at four o'clock in the morning and then ordered us
all out on deck with our duffle backs and we sat on them duffle bags til day light we still sitting
there til 9 o'clock before they started letting us depart get off. And we were shouldering our
duffle bags and was getting off and we saw these young girls and boys to out there all dressed
alike they had oxfords on ankle socks girls had plaid skirts and they were welcome us home I
though this is nice this is nice for them to come down here and do that for troops coming in. that
boy walking alone with me we served together in Korea he ask them what they were doing there
where they were from did they have a loved one or something they were greeting and that busted
our bubble they said they were from the school up on the hill and when troop ships come in they
paid them five dollars and give them the morning off to go down and welcome the troops.
Sams: O Ok. Well this has been a great experience talking to you. Is there any closing remarks
you wanna talk about?
McNeill: I’ll probably think of something after you leave but its good reminiscing about it it
was... I think about it a lot to myself don’t talk a lot about it but I do think about it a lot to myself
but the only place I think I got unnerved over there while I was riding shotgun on the truck
hauling ammunition and a big convey we went in behind the line and they went to shelling us
over there and they told them to scatter the convey so truck drivers one would go this way one
would go that way and got in the rough terrain that thing bounced and I fell off.
Sams: O wow
McNeill: He went on of course and later that night I found him we went up a trench there’s a
mountain in front of us they all ordered us up that trench to wind around and go up and he went
just a few feet and stop and waited on me he knew I would come through eventually and he was
kidding me about he was he been there and bout ready to rotate home. He was a tough dude from
St. Louis Missouri and he loved to rag me about how upset I got that night.
Sams: Very good. Well this has been great and glad we could do this thank you for your time
McNeill: Your welcome Jackson and I hope it serves you well
Sams: It will I’m sure. I’m sure it will be listened to for years now
7
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/37277063fcfda48a38b595c7bc34882f.MP3
5f1336fd3864f5bd266d5d987fdecd0f
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.
File size
52.3 KB
30.2 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
military branch (U.S. Army, etc)
U.S. Army
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sams; Jackson
McNeill; Samuel
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Sams, Jackson
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
McNeill, Samuel
Interview Date
10/14/2012
Number of pages
7
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:21:59
Date digitized
2/6/2015
Checksum
alphanumeric code
ec1071013a3922b4660798156356d6a2
5f1336fd3864f5bd266d5d987fdecd0f
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.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
Recording rate
A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit)
48000kzh x 16 bit
Format, original
Electronic File
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/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
5018_McNeill_Samuel_20121014_transcript_M
5018_McNeill_Samuel_20121014_audio_A
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Samuel McNeill [October 14, 2012]
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Language
A language of the resource
English
English
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sams, Jackson
McNeill, Samuel
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
Corporal Samuel McNeill, born in 1931, was drafted in the Korean War. He served in the US army and mainly worked in the textiles industry. He traveled often on leave, and got to see Japan and Seoul, Korea.
Subject
The topic of the resource
McNeill, Samuel
Veterans
Korean War, 1950-1953
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
army
corporal
draft
Korea
Seoul
textiles
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/a1d4e3f39f461b1213bad942a8690064.pdf
6d8f9ea432898e6277b79e697881088b
PDF Text
Text
Name:
Branch:
Years Served:
Conflicts:
Date of Interview:
Melvin Mullis, 3rd class Petty Officer
U.S. Navy
1944-1946
World War II
October 14, 2012
Matthew Price: My name is Matthew Price and I’m interviewing Melvin Mullis on
October 14, 2012. We are at Melvin’s house. What branch of the military did you serve
in?
Mullis: I was in the Navy
Price: What years did you serve?
Mullis: I served from 1944 through 1946
Price: What was your rank?
Mullis: I was a third class petty officer in the Navy
Price: What where you doing before you got drafted?
Mullis: I was in high school and I was drafted out of the senior class of high school and
reported for duty
Price: Where you expecting to be drafted?
Mullis: Well yea, everyone, every eligible person, a young man was subject to be drafted
and I was one of them. So I answered the call and was put into the Navy and then I took
my boot training at Bainbridge, Maryland. And after that I was assigned to a ship and we
went aboard a ship in New Orleans, Louisiana and we went down to the Panama cannel
and through the Pacific.
Price: What ship were you on?
Mullis: I was on the USS Yaupon and we went through the Panama Canal and went up to
San Diego to take on supplies and fuel and went to Pearl Harbor and from there we went
into the Pacific. The furtherest I got was Okinawa
Price: Where you only in WW2?
Mullis: Yes, the War ended a few weeks before we got to Okinawa and so I was not in
any combat but we were headed to it. But Mr. Truman stopped the war for us and we
didn’t have to get into combat.
1
�Price: So no major combat or battles for you?
Mullis: No, no battles
Price: What was your main job on the boat
Mullis: Damage control
Price: What did you do with that?
Mullis: In the event we were hit we would try to keep the ship from sinking, if there was
any way at all, long enough at least for the men to get off. So I would be one of the last
ones of the ship because I would be trying to get everybody else off the boat
Price: Trying to keep the ship up as long as possible?
Mullis: Yea and if it was not sinking then we would have to do repairs to what we could
to keep it moving
Price: Did your ship ever get any damage?
Mullis: No
Price: Never had the opportunity to?
Mullis: No, we were lucky we didn’t get there in time to go into combat
Price: What was your most memorable moment while you were in the Navy?
Mullis: I don’t know if I have just one particular memory. We were just being at sea, at
one time I was out for 67 days without stepping my foot on land
Price: That’s a long time
Mullis: And it was quite a while but anyway I think the best moment was when we
returned to the states. We got back on Christmas Eve.
Price: That’s when you got back, was on Christmas Eve? That’s a good Christmas
Mullis: We returned from the Pacific on and we were coming into Portland, Oregon and
started up the Columbia River and it got foggy and we had to anchor in the river. And the
next day we ate Christmas dinner on the way up to Portland, Oregon.
Price: Yea that’s a good Christmas gift to come back home
Mullis: Yea that was a memorable moment
2
�Price: That was after the 67 days out at sea?
Mullis: Yes that ended the 67 days when we did that. It was an experience that I would
have never gotten had I not been drafted. But anyway I was fortune more so then a lot of
them that never returned and that happened to the thousands of young men. We all went
with the intent on doing what is necessary. And that what the name of the game was, to
put a stop to the enemy and do what ever it took we were going to do it.
Price: You were ready to do your part
Mullis: We sure was
Price: How did you stay in touch with your family while you were away and gone so
long?
Mullis: While we were at sea like that there was no contact with the family
Price: Couldn’t send off letters or nothing like that?
Mullis: No, no way of sending it letters
Price: Yea mail doesn’t run in the center of the ocean
Mullis: Cell phones were not invented at that time so we just had to wait until we got
back to port and so our families didn’t know where we were or what we were doing or if
we were.
Price: Just left wondering
Mullis: That happened for many men no just me. But that happened to a lot of people,
but it was an experience. I was 18 years old when I went in and when I was discharged I
had already turned 20 so I was in there roughly two years. During that time I had to grow
up, I had to grow up in hurry. I was assigned to things on the ship that I can look back
now and say I cant believe that an 18 year old young boy as assigned to something like
that. But somebody had to do it, everybody was assigned to something but at one time I
had 6 men under me and if I had made one mistake it would have killed every one of
them. And I thought at 18 years old with that kind of responsibility you cant stay young
forever, you have to grow up and do what you have to do.. But there will never be
another war like WW2.
Price: I hope not
Mullis: All the stuff they have now to work with, it would be a lot different. They have
all this unmanned drones that they send over and no body we be at risk. But During
WW2 everybody just did what they had to
3
�Price: How was the conditions on the boat, like your room and food?
Mullis: We had good food, the work on the ship was fine and everybody did there part
and we would cruise right along and do what we had to
Price: What your most interested place you stopped at while you were in the military
Mullis: I enjoyed going through the Panama Cannel
Price: Yea I bet that was pretty cool
Mullis: But that was a beautiful place that we passed through the locks and went on out
to the Pacific side. That’s some beautiful country through there. It was something I
would never have gotten to do had I not been in the military and so there were some good
points that went along with the bad
Price: Did you have a girlfriend when you went into the military
Mullis: No I was not dating anyone regular so I didn’t worry about that. I hadn’t met my
wife yet, that came afterwards.
Price: What did you do to entertain yourselves on the boat while you had to work?
Mullis: Well most time we was having to work, and stand watch and all that kind of stuff
and out there at sea we were on 4 hours off 4 hours. That was the norm on the ship
Price: All day long?
Mullis: Yea all day on 4 off 4
Price: So you had to get your sleep in those 4 hours off?
Mullis: Yea and part of the time when we were off during the day we had to work.
Doing cleaning and repairs and that kind of stuff. Then you got back on another 4 then
hopefully you had time to sleep on that next 4 off at night. That gets kind of old after a
while. On 4 off 4. But you can accustomed to it and go with it. That’s about all you can
do at that point
Price: Yea you can t get out and leave
Mullis: No you can’t walk off and say im going home, that wouldn’t work
Price: Do you recall the day your service ended?
4
�Mullis: Oh yea I got my discharge at Little Creek Virginia and was ready to come home.
It was kind of let down when you got home. You done with all that you had been doing
for two years and then all the sudden you were out with nothing to do. So after being
drafted out of high school I went back and finished my senior year in high school
Price: So you weren’t even graduated when you were drafted?
Mullis: No I was just 3 months into my senior year when I got drafted so when I got my
discharge two years later I went back to finish high school. Because if I was going to go
any further I was going to have to have it, the 12th grade education
Price: Was the weird going back to high school after being out for 2 years?
Mullis: No I enjoyed it
Price: A lot better than being on a boat
Mullis: Well yea I was 2 years older than the other boys there and I had a pretty good
time
Price: I bet, counting your blessing being back home
Mullis: Oh yea very true.
Price: What did you do after you finished school?
Mullis: I got me and job and went to work
Price: What kind of work were you doing?
Mullis: I was working in a cabinet shop, worked there a while then went on to
construction building buildings of various kinds.
Price: Were you able to use many of your experiences from the military for work
Mullis: Not really, only to just do you job and do it well
Price: Do you still keep up with anybody you were in the war with?
Mullis: Yes, well I did. Two or three men and they all died now. One man he and I were
in Miami at the same time in the same barracks and he was from Elkin, NC and I got so
tired of being there at Miami that one day I told him I'm going to navel headquarters and
volunteering for sea duty and he said your not and I said watch me. So I went in and told
them what I wanted, they gave me a card that said be a pier 8 tomorrow morning at
9:00am for muster and I went back out and he said what you get and I showed him. He
said wait right here and went in and came back out with the same thing. We were
5
�together the rest of the time on the ship and he died about 5 years ago from cancer. We
would visit each other and call back and forth on the phone and keep up close until, I
hated to lose him but after spending 2 years with him he was like a brother to me. So it
changed my life but I hope for the better
Price: If there is anything else you would like to share then
Mullis: Nothing important, just one of those services we had to do and we did it.
Price: Are you in any veteran’s organization or anything like that?
Mullis: No, the only thing now is that I'm old enough for V.A. I get my medication from
them. I’m 86 now so that puts me on up there. I plan on being around for a while
Price: I know you have always been around since I’ve been here( He is my neighbor)
Price: If that’s all you have to say then
Mullis: That pretty well covers it, nothing dramatic but I just went and served
Price: Yea went and did what you had to do
Mullis: And I don’t regret having to go
Price: Yea that’s good. Got some good experiences about of it
6
�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/93ee69776efa2582c2bc77a93e718d56.mp3
42a9587a5dc9ebb15e1d7906c7dc9d82
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Title
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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
26.2 KB
14.4 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
military branch (U.S. Army, etc)
U.S. Navy
Officer Rank
Officer rank (major, private, etc)
3rd Class Petty Officer
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Price; Matthew
Mullis; Melvin
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Price, Matthew
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Mullis, Melvin
Interview Date
10/14/2012
Number of pages
6
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:15:44
Date digitized
2/6/2015
Checksum
alphanumeric code
362b90f27f2c5fb32154bb4388711f09
42a9587a5dc9ebb15e1d7906c7dc9d82
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.
Source
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UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
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A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit)
48000kzh x 16 bit
Format, original
Electronic File
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Identifier
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5018_Mullis_Melvin_20121014_transcript_M
5018_Mullis_Melvin_20121014_audio_A
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Melvin Mullis [October 14, 2012
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Language
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English
English
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Price, Matthew
Mullis, Melvin
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
Melvin Mullis served as a 3rd class petty officer in the Navy during WWII. He served aboard the USS Yaupon where he worked on damage control for the ship. He did not see any combat and returned to the States on Christmas Eve after two months aboard the ship. He said he couldn't communicate with his family at all because "mail doesn't run in the center of the ocean."
Subject
The topic of the resource
Mullis, Melvin
Veterans
World War, 1939-1945
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
1944-46
3rd class petty officer
Bainbridge
damage control
draft
Navy
USS Yaupon
WWII
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/f1d2db0e3e286db1b5a34b20655666f4.mp3
785c8ffd47bf1af13dd9ecad43155a6d
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/76c8f54905cedf5afd015685f69a35ae.pdf
c64f224c65f9e42ed1a9475f13dcc3cd
PDF Text
Text
Military Oral History Interview Transcript
George Murphy
Johnson County, NC
16 October 2011
PM: Patrick Murphy
GM: George Murphy
PM: This is Patrick Murphy interviewing George Murphy for the veteran’s oral history project.
It is the 16th of October and I am at George’s house in Johnston County. Can you please state
your full name?
GM: George Richard Murphy.
PM: What branch of the Military did you serve in?
GM: The United States Army!
PM: What reasons did you have for joining?
GM: I didn’t have any choice.
PM: So you were drafted.
GM: yes.
PM: How did that feel?
GM: Oh, not uncommon because at that time the only deferments from the military were for
medical school and any one, male, who was physically able was being inducted into the army
because we have the draft at that time which we don’t have any more.
PM: What year was this?
GM: 1968.
PM: Alright what branch of the military did you serve in?
GM: I served in the Army. I went into the Amy in October of 1968 and was discharged in April
or May of 1970.
PM: Where did you go to boot camp?
GM: I went to basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey for eight weeks for just basic military
skills. After then I was transferred to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for what they called advanced infantry
training commonly known as AIT. And I went to gunnery school at Fort Sill. I came out my
MOS or military occupational specialty with a 13 Eco 20, which means I was a battalion fire
1
�directional controller for the artillery. I did not shoot guns all I did was compute firing
coordinates.
PM: Would you have considered yourself good at math?
GM: My worst subject why I was at school was math and I wind up doing nothing but math the
whole time I am in the Army, which is traditional the way the army, does things.
PM: What’s your most memorable experiences of boot camp or any training camp that you went
through?
GM: Probably in basic training. I suppose it was firing weapons some of the weapons I had
never seen before. I had spent a lot of time on a farm and we always had guns. One thing I
remember especially was the seven mile walks or marches to the firing range, and spending the
night in a tent it was snowing, and what did we call it? Riding in cattle cars what were basically
semis behind tractors and they would load everyone up in them. That was basically it. It was an
experience. And that was when I was at Fort Sill; it was absolutely gorgeous just how big it is.
With the animals and all they have a game preserve out there. But the main thing I did was just
like being in college I went to class eight hours a day. And then firing, something you will never
do in civilian life was firing 155mm howitzers, which was an experience. Oh, I liked that they
had tracks so they were movable riding in a tracked howitzer back in forth to the gunnery ranges
was something I had never done and never plan on doing again.
PM: When did you deploy to Vietnam and where exactly did you deploy to?
GM: When I finished gunnery school at Fort Sill I got leave to come back to North Carolina
about two weeks. I received orders to go to Fort Lewis, Washington form that I was deployed
there to Cam Ranh Base, South Vietnam. And we flew from Fort Lewis to Alaska to Japan to
arriving at Cam Ranh Bay. Cam Ranh Bay was a huge air port outside right on the coast of
Vietnam and the thing I remember the most is when they shut the air plane down we had landed,
they opened doors about a quarter to 12, about 15 minutes to midnight and it was still 95 degrees
out and it was absolutely it took me four weeks get acclimated to country to stop sweating it was
so humid so hot.
PM: Just miserable conditions?
GM: Miserable. I didn’t have a dry stitch of clothing for four weeks. But then once you get
acclimated it is not all that bad but until you do its absolutely miserable.
PM: After you landed at that base where did you deploy to?
GM: What they did was, we spent the night in a transit barracks and then you stay there until
you get orders to go to your unit. I was there about a day and a half and I got orders to go up to
Chu Lai, which I am not really sure of the mileage it’s up north about 90 miles from Da Nang. I
2
�was ordered with the American Division. I was attached to the 380th Artillery, which was with to
the 26th Infantry. Our battalion headquarters was in Chu Lai. Which everything up there was on
the coast. We did not have any guns in Chu Lai all we had was battalion Headquarters with
radios and relies because the guns were actually in other fire bases 15 to 20 miles apart.
PM: So you were doing fire controlee at an off sight and the guns were somewhere else?
GM: Yes, I start well. I spent seven or eight months in the field on a fire base where we actually
had the guns. People think, you were commonly known as a cannon cocker, which I wasn’t. I
never fired a gun at all. I did was compute firing missions on a. We had a surveyed battery and
we were shooting into a map coordinates. All we did were compute what they call and deflect,
which was the raising of the gun how high and the charge to get it to the target. After about
seven months I was moved I went back to battalion.
Battalion headquarters was strictly in charge of the whole artillery. All we did at battalion was
compute fire missions for all three batteries. We had three batteries bravo charley…and alpha,
bravo and charley that was scattered out in probably about a 70 radius. And I never saw a gun
again all we did was…and at battalion we had contact with all three batteries and we would
compute fire missions for all three batteries. Because any time a battery would compute a fire
mission we had to compute the fire mission at battalion and our data had to meet within one
point of each other and then we could fire guns. If our data did not coordinate we could not fire.
We would have to hold off until we could find out what the problem was.
PM: How frequently would you be firing these weapons? Was it all day every day or was it a lot
of sitting around?
GM: We in what you call the FDC or fire directional controlee center. Where we worked out
of… we were assigned there twelve hours a day you either worked there from two in the
morning or two in the afternoon and every thirty days you would rotate from night shift to day
shift. What you did was…generally during the day we only fired as necessary for fire missions.
A lot of times we would have fire missions from forward observers and air observers because we
were general support for the whole American Division.
We would shoot pretty frequently during the day however every night we had what they called H
and I, which was harassment and interdiction. And we probably had 300 targets computed by the
general staff that these was were the enemy was we might have to fire two rounds at nine o’clock
on a location and two rounds at 12 on the same location and most of the time we’d fire 300 to
400 rounds a night on harassment and interdiction.
The rest of the time we had air observers flying plans and when they saw a target we would
answer to that and of course any ground troops that were…we had to be careful we because our
guns were so big that you couldn’t…anything within 50 meters of where the shell landed was in
the kill zone so you had to be absolutely careful that there were no friendly’s where you were
3
�shooting. And a lot of times what we did with Special Forces what they called contact fire
missions where they were actually being shot at and taking casualties and we would walk the
artillery in with a forward observer and just actually walk it in on the ground until we got it
correct and then we would shoot everything we’d got to get them out of there when they were in
that bad situation. We were only heavy artillery…eight inch and 175 an eight inch would shoot
15 miles and throws a 200 pound shell 15 miles, a 175 would shoot 26 miles.
Eight inch was totally accurate 175’s was not very accurate we never shoot 175’s in support of
ground troops. Because they just they weren’t that accurate now eight inch we would shoot
because the American that is was in was an old division that was reactivated…that was used in
World War Two and then deactivated and was reactivated for Vietnam. We had 25,000 men and
they included three infantry battalions, brigades and then aw two Special Forces groups pulse all
the support that goes with it. Our official designation was direct support for Special Forces and
general support of the American Division. We stayed pretty busy the whole time…and I do not
know what else to say.
PM: What are some of the most memorable experiences you have while just being in country? It
does not necessarily have to be related to your mission.
GM: The camaraderie that I developed with the members of our company. It was not always…
in the field was different then…I mean being on a forward base camp was pure military and was
24-7 with guarding and all the rest. Back at battalion head quarters where I spent my last few
months was completely different. It was on top of a hill…we had US shows come in every now
and then… every now and then we could go down to the beach. We could go to the beach
sometimes Bob Hope when he came in for Christmas and…which was totally secret that we
wound up being there. We played flag football a tournament in fact we won so it was…I mean it
was not always as bad as you think it was…you never felt safe or secure you always had to
worry about what was coming around the corner.
PM: How did you and other guys you know deal with that feeling that insecurity?
GM: It was just something that you learned to live with some guys took it better than others we
had some that actually couldn’t take it and they were rotated out. Some guys resorted to drugs
and if we found that out then we got rid of them because we could not depend on them if they
were pulling guard duty we knew they were doing drugs we would find a way to get rid of them.
It was something that you lived with every day if you thought about it would drive you crazy so
you didn’t you try not to think about it you just went and did your job and hoped you would
make it till you get home.
PM: When you transferred where you did you go for the last few months… what was it called?
GM: Battalion Headquarters.
4
�PM: What was the difference in your duty?
GM: First of all we did not have the gun crews. You weren’t working hand on hand with guys
who were actually shooting guns and looking after each other. Battalion was less stressful you
had hot meals all the time things you did not have in the field. And we had more responsibility
because we were dealing with all three batteries when in the field you are only dealing with one
battery, which was a lot easier.
Battalion was a lot more stressful and plus you had so many officers coming in and out it wasn’t
as easy as being in the field we had to compute fire missions for all three batteries instead of it
was a lot more work and a lot more stressful aw…I would much rather be in the field. Even
though the field was more dangerous the camaraderie between the fellows in the field was a lot
different.
PM: How did you end up being transferred was it by choice?
GM: I was running out of time in Vietnam and they rotated guys out and they had an opening for
a section chief at battalion. And I got sent to take it. They had two sections at battalion so they
had to have two section chiefs, who were enlisted men, and I was a sergeant so I took one of
those positions. And then we a…we answered to a captain who answered to a major so…you
had…in the field there was just a lieutenant in battalion you never had less than a captain or a
major to be responsible to.
PM: So it was a lot more up tight?
GM: Yes, it was a lot more like civilian.
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Murphy, George
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Murphy, Patrick
Interview Date
10/16/11
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
20:46 min
Copyright
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used.
Tag
Johnston County, Army, Fort Dix, Fort Sill, artillery, Fort Lewis, Vietnam, Cam Ranh Bay , 380th Artillery, 26th Infantry Division, Bob Hope
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with George Murphy, 16 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Murphy, George
Veterans
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
George Murphy, interviewed by Patrick Murphy, served in the United States Army and was stationed in Vietnam.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Murphy, George
Murphy, Patrick
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
5 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
American Division
Cam Ranh Bay
Chu Lai
draft
FDC
George Murphy
US Army
Vietnam