Long Home: In Their Own Words
When I first got back from Vietnam, I wanted to be so proud of my time and it wasn't there because of the way America thought that us Vietnam veterans fought a wrong war, or it wasn't the right war. But nevertheless, I lost comrades, brothers-in-arm. They didn't get to come home and all I wanted was some acknowledgement.
- Mel
We were let down … Congress just turned their backs on the whole situation and let it just slip out of our fingers. So that was a wrong approach because the North Vietnamese were ready to meet all of our demands. And I don't know why the congressional leaders at the time … just let it go. The Paris Peace talks went down the drain. So sure, it's a bitter pill to swallow. regardless of who you are, you know, I’m not a war monger by any means, but we've got to treat our adversaries as they should be treated. Defeat. It wasn’t that way.
- Tom
I’m no hero. Others were. Not me.
- Bob
Our first night we arrived in country, we were just kind of laying around wondering what we're gonna do the next day. There's a time of processing in, getting all your stuff together so you can go to work. We was laying there in the dorm that night, and then we hear this base siren goes off, and it was making this sound and telling us we were under attack. And we didn't know what to do. We were brand new there. Somebody ran into the building, turned the lights out, and said “Hit the deck. Hit the deck!”. I knew what that meant. So we all hit the floor, and we was in the dark for about an hour, hour and a half, that first night.
And finally the lights came back on and everybody's wondering what happened. Nobody knew what happened. And so that right there did something to me. That was my introduction to war right there. And so the next day we find out that there were nine Viet Cong trying to get over the perimeter fence, and they were all shot and killed, and they left them hanging on the fence. That was my introduction to Vietnam. It scared the daylights out of me.
- Bill
One thing I was always afraid of is that I would have to hurt somebody. And you got the choice when they're coming on you … to either not want to die, or if you want to live, you have to take the offensive. And the first one bothered me more than anything because you were you pushed to the brink. And when you finally come out, it's like you get a … it's a feeling that you can't believe. It's, it's a power feeling, but it's also a guilt feeling. And you have to live with it. And it's hard living with it. We tried to say, well, our buddy's killed, so I'm gonna revenge him. But if you're taught, if you believe in God, that's not your position. So how do you vindicate yourself for doing that? You were trained to do it. You were trained to kill people, and then you have to live with that the rest of your life.
- Glaise
In 2000, I went back again. We met with some NVA vets … we had a healing circle. One NVA looked at me and says, ‘I shoot you, you shoot me. I shoot you, you shoot me. We are now brothers’, meaning they had no animosity. They were doing what they were told to do. We were doing what we were told to do. It was a different time.
- Bob G
I was military, I was airborne strong. I wanted to be where you played cowboys and Indians and army back in the day when you were kids. And I got a chance to do it for real. So yeah, I thought we could do something. A lot of us, when we got over there, we started talking about when you come in country, getting orders to go, different things like that. Sitting there at China Beach sometimes, talking to the other guys, they just wanted to get home. They just wanted to get out of their uniforms and go home and never say anything about anything. Some guys did, and I’m one that didn't. So I am talking now because I've kept it in myself so long.
- Robert
We all got mail and usually moms from home would send you a food package typically with, you know, a letter. And, uh, my mom sent me a food package with burritos in it. All the way to Vietnam. With sour cream and salsa. I don’t think my mom had any idea …
- Gus
Because we had 80% casualties in our battalion, Cunningham was the only one with three months in country, so he was the only one qualified to go on R&R. So the lieutenant said to me, uh, Cunningham's schedule for R&R on such and such date, pass it on to him. So I did. And Cunningham said to me, um, he heard all the stories about guys coming back from R&R. They all had hooked up with a local girl. And he said to me, he was Amish from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and had never kissed a girl before other than his mother. And so I said to him, well, do you have a camera back in your sea bag? He said, well, yeah. I said, take it with you and just take pictures. You don't have to hook up with a girl. In the meantime, I go on R&R. While I was gone, I come back and I find out Cunningham had got shot and killed. And, so he had never kissed a girl in his life other than his mother.
- Steve
I still got a bitter taste about stuff … everywhere people say, well, thank you for your service. Where the hell were you at when I came home?
- Pete
Rodriguez was only there three weeks. He said, uh, I don't want to be point man, I don't think I'm ready. So I told him, I said okay, I'll tell you what. I go talk to the Lieutenant and see if we can switch for this one mission. He said, okay, I appreciate it. So I went talk to the lieutenant. He said, yeah, y'all can switch. So he became a radio man, which I was supposed to do. And I was a point man again. So at that time we started walking down the wood line and we wasn't supposed to go so far, but we did. We went 200 meters out our area of operation and all of a sudden artillery started dropping on us. And when it did, we all got to the ground real quick and there's about four or five rounds came in and the lieutenant said one of our men been hit. So when it stopped, leutenant said my RTO is dead. And I said, the RTO is dead? He said, yeah. So we all got him, got his buckles, all that. Put 'em on the side, called in the chopper to take him out. And that's where I was supposed to be at. I was supposed to be dead, dead man. If we didn't switch places, that would've been me.
- Clyde
The people just didn't understand, don't understand. It was like, there was no war going on when you got back here. And you get to where you can't relate to these people. And it came to a point where you, for me, you actually wanted to go back over. Cause my family is still over there, you know? I need to get back, these people don't understand me, you know? And that leads into a period, for me anyway, where you kind of shove everything down and you don't, it's hard to explain. I just became like a mannequin, I guess, you know? I don't know. But that don't last. Then you start exploding. You get irritated.
You don't know why you're irritated. And back at that time, nobody talked about it. I mean, none of your friends, you came back home and you met your friends, and it was like, there was no war going on. Where you been at, man? You know? Uh, I ain't seen you here in a while, you know? It just goes on and on and you shove it down, you shove it down, but it popped, it comes back up.
- Cal
Here we are young women in these blue dresses that are like iron. I mean, they wear amazingly well. And I don't know, we were so young and so naive, it was like, well, why would anybody shoot a young girl in a blue dress? You know, that didn't make sense. Now I realize that sounds idiotic today, but I don't think it ever crossed my mind. I mean, obviously if you were somewhere and there was incoming, fire come coming in, you went into the bunker and you stayed down. But it just really did not cross my mind that I could be killed.
- Doris
I was in baggage [coming home]. A couple of anti-war protesters, this was about 11 at night…they were harassing me. I wasn’t in the mood. So, the fight was on. I took them both on and beat both their asses. Then the MPs and the airport cops wanted to arrest me. I said, you go ahead and try it pal. I thought I left the war when I got off that plane. He figured it out and just said, why don’t you get out of here and don’t get in anymore trouble at the airport.
- Larry
The tunnels, you could hear it. You could lay in your bunk sometimes and hear them digging and digging, and digging. And sometimes they'd be digging all night, all night, all night. And I didn't realize, well we knew something was going on, but the United States government, or the powers that be in Vietnam was sort of lackadaisical about it. But you knew cuz we had that little dog Tina, and Tina, she just raised hell all the time. Especially at night.
- Felton
I mean, I was raised to be patriotic and I considered myself a patriotic person. However, I did not agree with that war and didn't believe in it. But the way the draft laws were at that time, you only had about three choices. You either went to Canada, went to jail, or went to Vietnam.
Believe it or not, 53 years later, I spend time there every day or every night. Hopefully,it's in the daytime. Sometimes it might be only a few minutes, and sometimes it may be an hour or two, but that still happens today.
- Terry
I don't think my thoughts on that war have altered much from then till now. I viewed it as a horrific waste, both of money and lives. A total waste. We didn't accomplish a goddamn thing, you know? We just killed a bunch of people and got a bunch of ours killed is the way I see it. Accomplished nothing.
- Perry
I get in a mood sometimes where I'll be sitting here and wondering why I didn't die over there instead of people that I seen die over there.
- Alan
I never told anybody I was going in. I knew in ‘67 that I was going to Vietnam, that I was gonna join the flight program. But I didn't tell anybody, you know. It wasn't a conscientious decision, but it was also, I didn't have anything else. It was the only road open to me.
- Bob H
I got home a few days before Christmas and we went out drinking with some of my buddies and I was still proud. I had my army uniform on drinking in the ballroom, like I was big shot. And (a friend) decided it would be funny to scare me, you know, so he threw a cherry bomb on the floor and it blew up. And I was like, what happened? He figured it would like freak me out. But I mean, I was so used to hearing it, you heard it day and night, especially when you were in the rear, a lot of these artillery rounds, short rounds, they make a big pounding when they take off, the whole ground kind of shakes, so you get used to it.
- Gary
It's the only American war in history where every other war you went to basic, you went to advanced infantry training together, and you all shipped over to war together. You fought together, you went on R&R together and you all came back together on the same ship. So they got to work out a lot of their issues going over, while they were there, and especially coming back on them long boat trips from Germany, France, North African back to the United States. That's a 40 day boat trip. So they got to work out a lot of their stuff on the ships, talking among themselves. You know, Vietnam is the only war in American history where you train as a unit. They broke you up as soon as you graduated basic. you went to another unit and they broke that up as soon as you graduated. You went to Vietnam alone. You fought your one year alone and you left alone.
- Clifford
You lose too many people, too many friends. In many cases, you don't even know what people's first name was. Cause you didn't wanna know, you didn't get close to 'em. And a lot of people you knew by a nickname more than you did anything else. And that's a problem that I have right now, because I can't remember all the people's names on that wall that I should.
- Ron
We'd go to a village and treat kids and the women and all. And you know, at times we definitely knew you were treating VC as well, so you did that. But that's when you take that other hat off. And sometimes, looking back at that, when you're treating the kids, that was sort of some of the fun moments in an ugly situation. Cause the kids are always just kids at that point. They just hadn't been taught, you know, you're gonna hate the Americans.
- George
I enlisted. I was going to junior college and the guy across the street from me, he got drafted, and I used to write him every now and then, you know what I mean? He'd tell me what was going on you know? He was in the jungle doing this and doing that. I said, man, it's a real war going on and it kind of gets you. How do you call it? I guess your testosterone levels go up, man. You want to be there, get in the middle of it. But I didn't. I really wanted to work on planes. That was my whole thing.
- Chuck
I joined after high school. I just wanted to get away from home. Get away from my dad.
- Shane