Spirit seemed to emerge earlier than most. Hank yes. I spent part of my childhood in georgia, in the middle part of georgia. I was born in jacksonville, florida, and i think from age probably three to eight was spent in georgia. An area considered middle georgia, not are from augustine, not too far from augustine, georgia. After that, i went with my family to saint augustine, florida, and that is where i came of age as a teenager. I came by my activism very early. I always had an innate sense of what was right and what was wrong, and i dont know exactly where i got that from. The idea of segregation and things that white people could do and black people could not do, i understood very early. Maybe as early as 7, 8 years old, that there was something wrong with that. Obviously i wasnt capable of any deep philosophical thinking, it is just that, why cant we go there and the white folks can . Or why are we poorer than white people . Those were things as a child that concerned me. I did have one incident in watley, georgia, wherein i guess i violated a very sacred and life endangering taboo. I put my hands on a white woman. We were in a store with very narrow aisles, and i was coming down the aisle and she was coming up the aisle. It was such that you had to turn sideways to get past each other. I took a right to go past and she took a right. It was that two for two dance. Finally, she put her hands on my shoulder with a smile and said, you stand here and let me scoot past you. When my friends saw that, they were scared out of their wits. And they ran out of the store running home. I am thinking, what in the world is going on . Have they done something wrong . I am running behind them and by the time we got back to where we lived, they ran home and told my mother that i had touched a white woman. I still did not understand what that meant. My mother knew what that meant and she immediately grabbed me and hugged me and started praying. I still didnt understand what was going on. About a week later, the ku klux klan paraded through our community, and they did that at night. They would turn the light on in their car and sit in their cars and drive through the neighborhood in their robes. I still didnt know what was going on. But later i learned that there had been cases where black boys as old as i am had been killed because they had touched a white woman. Once again, i just shrugged my shoulders. I didnt understand why. In florida, you had the colored and white signs, especially at the drinking fountain. And i naively wanted to know what color was the water in the colored fountain. Of course, i drink from the colored fountain. We had a small bus company in saint augustine, florida. I almost never sat in the back. Saint augustine was almost like any other southern town. If i had lived in montgomery, there is a chance i could have been killed. I had a reputation so i guess people dismissed my actions that kind of way. But i always knew this whole thing about segregation and what white folks could do and black folks could not do, i knew there was something wrong with that. It was not until many, many years later, i think i am in my 40s, when i attended a funeral of a relative of mine in georgia. Outside the church was a cemetery, and a lady who has since passed who was the oral historian for our family, took me to the cemetery and had me walk among the tombstones. And i am reading the names of people who had died many years ago. She brought me to a tombstone that said, born 1827, died 1907. And she told me the story of this lady. This lady was the most whipped slave in all of that particular county. And what happened to her, as it was related to me, was one day she was working in the fields. A tall lady for those times. She may have been five feet six inches tall. The owner of the farm where they were slaves sent for her to come into the house. It seems that everybody knew what that meant. That meant she was going to be eventually raped by the owner of the farm. After she was working there for maybe a few weeks, he attempted to rape her. She fought him off. That in itself was a capital offense. She was taken out to the middle of the yard, tied to the whipping post, and whipped so badly she was not able to go back to the work in the fields for a week or so. Once she healed, went to the fields. After a matter of weeks, she was sent for again. Again, she went to the house and after a period of time, he attempted to rape her again. And again, she fought him off. Again, she was whipped severely. A third time when she was sent for, she went to the whipping post and tied herself to the whipping post. And when the women of the field saw that, they all came from the field and surrounded her. And of course, she was not whipped. And so, i was standing there and my cousin said, introduce yourself. I said, introduce myself . He said yes, introduce yourself. I said, maam, my name is henry james thomas. And she said, this is your great great great grandson, henry james. I lost it. I fell down on my knees and was crying. And then i said to her, i am so sorry i was not there to protect you. And she, my cousin, looked at me and said, you see . She asked how many times i had been arrested. I said 22 times. She said, white folks had been whipping you, too, but you didnt give up your manhood . I said no. And she said, and she didnt give up her womanhood. That is when i learned something about my family. Probably once a year, the town is 3 hours drive from atlanta. I go to her grave and i talked to her. Host was she on your mothers side or your fathers side . Hank my fathers side. That is where i get my rebellion from. Host did your parents talk to you about these things at all . Hank no. Not talk to their children about slavery. I dont think many Holocaust Survivors talk to their children. It was a matter of shame and a matter of revisiting something that was awful. So i never when i talked to my mother about that particular story, she was just silent. No doubt she had heard about it. The complete irony is that particular farm where my family was held as slaves is now owned by one of my Family Members. The historian, who died early last year. She owned that particular, and we had on my fathers side some of our family reunions there. She would constantly try to get me to spend the night in that house and i told her, im sorry. I cant do that. But the irony is that the Family Member owned that because obviously over the years, whoever owned it from the white side fell into some Financial Difficulties and either had to sell it or be sold for taxes. Host when did you graduate from high school . Hank 1959. Host and did you go to college . Hank Howard University, and that is where i got started in an organized fashion in the civil rights movements, 1960. Host what was going on in the school . Was this something that you found yourself in an environment which was supporting ideas that you had . I imagine you were chomping at the bit. Hank absolutely. That is the way to describe it. September 1, when the students sat down at the lunch counter and came on the 6 00 news that this had happened, i remember sitting in. We had one room in a dorm where there was a tv. The rest of us could not afford a television. Watching, it was down in the basement of what we called the day room or the activity room. I am watching this on a particular channel, and they talked about what these students did and i remember jumping up and saying, yeah, weve got to do the same thing. The city of d. C. Had a public accommodations law. Right to the south is virginia, segregation. To the north and east is maryland, segregation. So while we could go to any restaurant in d. C. , just a few minutes away, we could not. We got started and i helped organize the first chapter of the nonviolent action group, which we called nag, and every week we would go to either virginia or maryland to do sit ins. I think sometime that month i was first arrested in maryland. We were protesting racism at a movie theater. It was, like you said, i was chomping at the bit. It was tailormade for me. Host you got involved fairly early. How did that happen . Hank Howard University had the second largest student protest group. Tennessee state had by far the largest. All during the month of february, march, and up to april, a lot of the colleges, historically black colleges throughout the south, where worth of it some form were ofing some form demonstration and sitins. Ellen baker, who at that time was a member of the slcc, came up with the idea that all of the students who were involved and needed to be some coordinated effort. So she organized this for students to come to raleigh, north carolina. And we did, and that weekend, we met students from Tennessee State, fisk university, moorhouse, spellman. All of us came together and that is when miss baker said we should form our own organization. So the various organizations that they had at this campus, we decided to form one group, and it was called the student nonviolent coordinating committee. That is the acronym for sncc. That is how we got started. So we kind of folded our organization into that one organization. That is how we became sncc. Host that is when you were a freshman . Host i was curious about the academic side of your college years. Hank i left home with the idea of becoming a doctor. There was a lady who lived across the street, a lady who also had a little private school. We called her mama joshua, and she thought i was a pretty smart kid because i memorized the books of the bible quicker than any other kid. To this day, i can still recite a few of them. Everything was done in the form of singing. Like, genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers, deuteronomy. She thought i was pretty smart. She said, you need to go to school to be a doctor so you can come back here and take care of me and my sister. So i left Howard University with the idea of becoming a doctor. The first time i was arrested, i was in jail. The heck with being a doctor, i am going to be a lawyer because i need to fight this injustice. [laughter] hank that was the idea. I was never a real stellar academic scholar in the classroom. I had to work harder than anyone else just to get a c out of a class. But that is when i got thoroughly involved, and i guess you can say i realized what my calling was. Host when did you first year about the freedom riders . Hank 1961, because we got started in may of 1961. I think i got the flyer or the news about it probably in march. They were looking for someone at least 21 years of age or older, and of course i was only 19. So my roommate, john moody, who had spent 10 years in the air force and came to howard, so he was 10 years older than myself, he had also volunteered and he was selected to go. Obviously, he was over 21. I think two days before we were supposed to report to a friends Retreat Center there in northern virginia, he got sick and he could not go. And then he said to me, why dont you just go . I was always big for my age and people always thought i was older than i appeared. So i showed up and told them the story. And i did not tell them how old i was, however. So i filled out the form and the part where it says age and date of birth, i left it blank. I was accepted. It was an oversight on someones part. Two days into the training, somebody asked me again how old was i, because i forgot i had left it. I said 19, and they said, oh my gosh. But it was too late then. I said, i am 19 but i act 30. [laughter] hank and that is how i got selected for the freedom ride. Host how long was the training . What was the training . Hank i thought it was at least two weeks. I have since learned that it was probably only a week that we were training. And in that section of northern virginia, even though it was said to be more liberal than the rest of the country, still people were not ready for blacks and whites to be meeting under the same roof and certainly sleeping under the same roof. We had some trouble with the local authorities when they found out we were doing it. Fire inspectors got there, found all kinds of violations. Police started giving speeding tickets to people coming and going. In other words, we got properly harassed by the authorities. But that was only about three days prior to our completion of the training. So we did, and none of us got arrested there in northern virginia. Host how many were training . Was it enough for the first couple of rides . Hank we had 13 training. Six whites and seven blacks. I think may 4 is when we left washington dc. Our first stop was richmond, virginia. Host you must have been excited and scared. Hank excited, but not scared. I had no idea what i was getting into, what we were getting into. I was 19 and at 19, you thrive on either the perception of danger. You are used to breaking the rules, all of that. So i had no idea. And especially in richmond, virginia. Nothing happened. The people there acted decent. The fbi knew everything we were doing. I have since learned of the kind of dirty tricks that J Edgar Hoover tried to play on us and succeeded in some instances. But the next stop was charlotte, north carolina. Once again, no problems. The bus stations were integrated and we had no problem. It was when we went to south carolina, that was the first incidents of violence. One man was beaten pretty badly. I was on a bus that was stopped in south carolina. Another man was beaten pretty badly when he got off the bus. But i was not physically attacked. The Police Arrested me and in the night, they took me out to a klan mob. The deal was they did not book me into the station, there is nothing on the records indicating i had ever been arrested. And because the idea was to deliver me to the klan and the klan would kill me, and the police would say, ive never heard of him, we never arrested him, we have no record of him ever being in rock hill. I was rescued by a black man who had watched the police and had been assigned by corps to, if anybody is arrested, to report back. And he had been watching the police, and when i was ordered out of the police car at gunpoint, i had to run from the mob and he drove up beside me as i was running and told me to jump in the back seat and get down on the floor. And that is how i escaped from winnsboro, south carolina. Host do you still know that man . Hank i never knew his name. I have tried all these years, and i am pretty sure he has passed. The city of winnsboro is inviting me back, and i said, let bygones be bygones, right, guys . The police chief is an africanamerican. They are having a welcome back event after 35 years. That will take place sometime next month or in april. Thats it. Host amazing. So the ride continued. Hank it continued. We caught up with the group in atlanta, georgia. And we were warned and advised by dr. King and his folks, you need to stop this ride because you are going into alabama and it is a hotbed of klan activity, and someone is liable to get killed. Because i was missing for a period of 24 hours, they thought for sure that i had been killed. Because when they called rock hill to inquire about my whereabouts, the police said, we dont know what you are talking about. And that was a very good indication there that they had done something to him. So when i showed up again, i didnt think it was such a big deal after i escaped. [laughter] hank they were just happy to see me. And obviously, they had to do some thinking. Should we continue with this ride . And of course my answer was, of course we are going to continue. And so, we went on into anniston. When we got into the city, the streets were deserted. And we turned the corner of the street leading to the bus station, and there was a mob gathered at the bus station. And when the bus pulled in, they were yelling and screaming. The bus driver had brought them the freedom riders, and they were going to take over. They started breaking out the windows, and the bus driver had locked the door as he escaped from the bus so they could not get in the door. After a while of beating on the bus and rocking it, Robert Kennedy had contacted governor patterson and the president of greyhound that the freedom riders were trapped in anniston, alabama, so you have to get them out of there. The bus driver got on the bus and tried to drive away. There was a lot of cars behind him and cars in front of him that would not let the bus driver go more than 15 miles an hour. A tire had been punctured, two tires had been cut. The bus stopped at a Country Store along the highway. Another mob was there, and they continued the job of beating on the bus. They had their children and their wives with them. They had come to see the freedom riders get lynched. An incendiary device was thrown onto the bus in an open window. The bus ignited in fire. The thing that saved us, because they held the door shut as the bus was burning. They were saying, lets burn these niggers alive. The flames reached the fuel tank and blew out the back of the bus and everyone scattered. That is the way we were able to get off that bus. And the mob followed us to the hospital. After the attorney general pleaded with governor patterson to provide Police Escorts to take us to the hospital, they came to the hospital, asking the hospital to put us out. And the hospital did not have to refuse, because we were not going to leave the hospital. They threatened to burn the hospital down. Finally, governor patterson agreed that three other men could drive cars it could have been four to anniston, alabama to rescue us. Host i read that rescue was an armed rescue. Do you remember that . Hank i know one man told his people to bring arms. I remember hearing a couple of the people said, to hell with that. They brought their guns because if we had been stopped by any of those mobs, they had to do something to protect us. But we also found out, and i had the chance to talk to john patterson, the governor. He is still alive and i think he is 93 years old. He had a lunch with us and asked for forgiveness, said they were wrong and asked to pose for a picture with me. Asked me if he could take a picture with me, and i have that picture at my house with him and my daughter. So he said he was sorry and he apologized, he was wrong. And as you probably know, George Wallace before he died went to a white church and asked for forgiveness. But that is how we got out of anniston. Some of those men said they had weapons. Host were you injured during this process . Hank we all suffered from smoke inhalation. Once you get that kind of smoke in your lungs, it takes some time, a few days, to get out. And that is a horrible feeling. I was hit probably with a baseball bat as i came stumbling off of the bus. He asked me, are you all right . And i am thinking, somebody is concerned. And i knew, i was on the ground because he hit me. There is a picture of a Police Officer and an Alabama State trooper standing beside me as i am on the ground. They did absolutely nothing to protect us. But that is the only injury i had. Host when john lewis was hurt a few days earlier, was he with you . Hank no, he was physically in no shape to continue. He later joined the group in montgomery prior to us going to mississippi. But he needed to have a few days to recover. So the ride did continue. What was next . Students from Tennessee State heard that we could no longer continue to write. Immediately, they took up the cause and started the ride again , students from nashville started to come to montgomery, and they got the crack be out of them as well. One of them came close to being killed when the mob attacked them. Told theomery police that when the freedom riders come to town you have 15 minutes to do what you that wedo, and after will have to move in. In those 15 minutes they almost killed some of the freedom riders. John who was a direct representative of Robert Kennedy, was beaten and knocked out. That,obert kennedy heard if nothing else moved him to act, that is when he got on the phone again and told the that he wasalabama going to get the National Guard if you did not do something. It was only then that they decided to do something. Years later, during a meeting, we all went up to him and helped him for sacrificing his head to the cause. ,f he had not been knocked out he was the cause of us getting rescued. This was made, and you were supposed to be in school during this time. Did you go back to school . Hank eventually. Ended and irides went back to school in 1962. That is when the army came looking for me. Host so tell me about that. Time the draft boards were using their powers to wish people who had been involved in civil rights. The way they did that was to draft you into the army, because chances are if you are from piedmont, alabama, and were in school in nashville, there was a good chance you did not notify the draft board that you were living in nasa field. Nashville. The law stated that you were to notify the draft board. Notify your draft board, you are immediately subject to be drafted or inducted into the army. Notice, i knew what that meant. Thinking, and i was told that if i go and present myself to the local recruiter, i am no longer in violation, and at least i have an opportunity to select the occupation i wanted in the army. I did not necessarily want to go into combat, so i said i would like to become a medic. I felt that being a medic meant i was going to be working in a hospital. Know, the infantry needs medics on the battlefield. That is when i found out the hard way i was going to be in the action. You went back to school in 1962 and the draft board contacted you, that after the school year they started . I finished the school year. In 1963i presented myself for the draft and was inducted into the army in october 1963. Host the was only 16,000 advisors in vietnam. Hank they kept increasing each month. ,n 1963i was at fort jackson but after fort jackson i went to san antonio for my medical training. That you can make an extra 55 per month. Married, so that 55 per month was a huge amount of money, so i volunteered for the airborne. , became an airborne soldier getting an extra 55 per month plus a promotion which meant an extra 30 per month. Those a lot of money for me at that time. Benningen sent to fort for my airborne training, and it was at fort benning where the new calvary unit was formed. They called it the airmobile unit. So i went to vietnam in september of 1965 with the air calvary unit. At the endin vietnam of september, and by the middle of november i was in battle. I want to backup is a bit. I am wondering how you felt about this because this is the moment when the civil rights country is grabbing the , and you have to go off and do this. Conflicted, no doubt about it. What do i do . My grandfather served in broadmoor one. My father served in world war ii. Man, when you served, it was your military would confirmped you as a firstclass redblooded american citizen. That was not the case of the black soldiers who served in the civil war. All of them thought that with service, this will prove that we are entitled. Naively, i felt the same way. You wanted an opportunity to prove that you are truly an american, so that kind of inner conflict i had when i went to vietnam. The was more than once in vietnam that i was thinking what am i doing here . Other blackthe Vietnam Veterans, the country was changing and it did change. While we still have some , black soldiers who came back had lots of problems, but they were nowhere near the intensity of the old treatment that world war ii black veterans suffered when they came back. Where were you deployed in vietnam . In the highlands. November of that year was the year that the first large American Unit had contact with the north vietnamese unit. It and awritten about movie was made. I was at the tail end of that battle. By this time in the army i was a senior medic, and i have four other medics serving under me. Three of them were killed. Two of them were killed on the same day in that particular battle. , whenas one of those days i heard about them being killed, the two that were killed were both 18yearold white boys. I emphasized the fact that they were white, because for the first time in my life, they had a chance to interact on an equal level. These young white boys, they looked at me as being their protector. I do not know why. Maybe because of my age or anything. I never had any problems with them. So when i found out that they had been killed in that particular battle, that was a pretty difficult day for me. Did you feel about the war in particular . I understand that the idea of service, you had hoped that would be meaningful. Did not think that much about the politics of the war. You were concerned about staying alive. Especially if you were in a frontline combat unit going out on patrols and people around you are getting killed. You think about staying alive. It, there were a few times when i kept saying what am i doing here for super how my going to be received when i get back home . Are things going to be changed when i get back home . I had my problems with whites in did,am, as a lot of blacks as you had white southerners who came in with these particular attitudes. My captain tried to have me courtmartialed couple of times while i was over there. He was from mississippi and brought his own prejudices into. He company there were some Serious Problems in vietnam. Especially in the rear guard units. It threatened to tear the army apart and really ruined its effectiveness. The were a couple of times in the early 70s where junior officers, first lieutenants, or even captains, would not take their man out on patrol. Cvs cbs interviewing one junior lieutenant who refused to take his unit. Order, andd a direct simply told a reporter, when we go out and the shooting starts i do not know who was going to be shooting at home. That is how bad the racial issues had gotten there. The army saw that it had a problem, that it had to do something, and indeed they did what they found out was, only about 2 of officers in vietnam were africanamerican. Part of thatrst war, 19651966, war, 1965 to 1966, 25 to 26 of the kias were africanamericans. That became a problem. The word cannon fodder. That was not the situation. Africanamericans generally preferred and went to the combat arms. That was where you got the rank. The rank came down first to the combat arms. You had a chance of making ranked 30 fast, pretty fast. Those were the elite units of the army at that time. And yes a lot of us were gung , ho. We were predominate in the airborne units. The other thing was that we wanted the chance to prove that we were good and that we would fight for our country. And we did. , ho. The downside of it was, wht ,as time to give up the medals that is when i began to get into trouble. Blacks were not getting the medals. That was one of the issues with, that is when i began to get into e4aptain i am only an now, and i was confronting my cap to and as to why the blacks were not getting any medals. All of the medals were given to the whites. I guess my tone accused him. I had asked some what, some blacks were not getting medals. He said oh we recommended this one for a silver star and we recommended this on for another medal, and nothing ever came of it. That was the basic of that is the captain. Of course, i request that. Ermission to go to the ig just dontain, you do that. Because, you are saying that you have no faith in his to do a leadership. That is when i began to have my problem. Another incident that happened was some of the white soldiers had sent home and asked their relatives to send them Confederate Flags. One day, at our company headquarters, a Confederate Flag wasted in the us was instead of old glory. I had gotten a reputation as the. Uy who did not give a damn i saw this rebel flag hanging. I got my m16. Forgot about three or four magazines, i got about three or four magazines. I put that sucker on automatic. I fired a magazine. Everybody started running at the same time. Wondering what the heck is going on. I emptied that magazine and put in another one. Finally, that flag came down. I walked calmly back to my tent. And of course, obviously, the captain sent for me. I got the m16, shouldered it, and went to see the captain. [laughing] he told me not to do it again. But i became a hero to the black soldiers. There were a few other incidents that we had to contend with as well. Host was that the captain from mississippi . Guest yeah. Host he only told you not to do it again . Guest i dont think he wanted to tell me anything else at that particular moment. [laughter] host i was going to ask you how did you cope with your rebellious streak while you were in the military . You clearly had plenty of avenues for i wanted to stay in the military. I had qualified to go to aviation school. A warranto become officer. I when i looked at my possibilities of employment outside the military, given my everything, staying in the military was a very attractive idea. The problem was, my captain was in no way going to recommend me for going to aviation school, because another little incident happened. The supply sergeant who was from mississippi, supply sergeant, were notorious for being scroungers. They were criminals. All right, let as just put it like that supply sergeants were criminals. They could do all kinds of things. As with a lot of initial equipment in the army, it was hit and miss. Some of it was unsuitable. One of the problems we had was with the boots. They would wear out immaturely as a result of the high humidity and everything, so we had to experiment with getting a boot that would last. Everybodys boots were wearing out. And then the army would send in the new boots. Well, they would obviously come to Headquarters Company first. Your job was to ship them out to the other company. All the blacks in our company were not getting the boots. The white soldiers were. This is outrageous. The black soldiers came to me and said, you know, surgeo sergt sherry is getting boots for the sherry is getting boots for the white guys and not us. That was all they needed to say. Thomas madeank a beeline for the s ergeant and said, that the blacks were not getting any boots. Im not supposed to be talking to him the way i was. He just told me, at ease soldier. He said you need to mind your own business. I said you have any new boots back there . Before he could answer, i went behind the counter and tore open the lock off of the locker. A line of blacks were already behind me. So i came out and said what size , do you wear . And he was standing there and saying, you cant do that i said im handing out boots to the blacks. [laughter] so, once again, this time, the captain did tell me that we were slated to go out on another patrol. On another big operation. The next day. And he told me, i want to see when you come back, if you come back. And i said, what do you mean if i come back . [laughter] my days of remaining in the army, i knew that he would be happy when i left. But to my surprise, when i got formcharge papers, my db 214 form 214, none other things are in there that he had threatened me with. Maybe he was glad to say good riddance. And that was it. Host can you tell us how you were injured . Hank thomas we went up to set. P an ambush i had always thought, it is not a good idea to try to sneak up on the enemy, because all the tens before, had not worked out very well. All these before had not worked out very well. Maybe we need to let them know that we are coming. They would say listen, its not worth it. We got up very early in the morning. Here is what i want you to think about. How can you sneak up on anybody with 25 helicopters . But we thought, [laughing] we thought that we would get there about 7 00 in the morning and that up an ambush along a trail, ifled vietnam you will. By the time we got there, and got set up, all hell broke loose. They were already there just waiting for us. I dont know why. They did not shoot down the choppers. They waited for the choppers to leave and let loose. The whole thing probably lasted about five or six minutes. To me, it seemed like forever. When it was over, i think about three of our guys were killed. Four or five of them were wounded, including myself. I remember being knocked down. I knew i had been shot. The old saying goes, if you can feel something, that means you are still alive. I know i have been shot, so im trying to figure out where i am shot. This particular hand had been knocked behind me. When i was able to remove my hand, it was uncontrollable. I could not keep it from shaking. Bones were sticking out through my hand. They said that the first thing i said was, oh hell, i am going home now. Because, if you had that kind of wound, it would require extensive surgery and that was send you home. I also had been hit in the chest as well. That particular wound was not as greedy as grievous. I had a superstition supersts the most heavily armed medic and all of vietnam. My superstition was, if i lowered myself down in addition to my medical supply with a 45, i had an m16, and i had the grenade launcher. People would ask me, i would say if i would carry this stuff, i would never have to use it. Ok . I would never be in a situation where i would have use it. So one of the will is i think, hit one of the magazines. I think one of them must have and eldest offe and it did not go that far into my chest area and that was one of the things that saved me. When i got ready to treat a soldier, i was, let me get rid of the ammunition. [laughing] that was my superstition. Host when was the injury . Guest i got injured and of course everybody came running around me. I will never forget the movie hamburgerthat was my superstit. With the medic. I had the chance to meet Courtney Vance sometime later who played that role. I told him, did you realize that you were me . He was that same kind of soldier. We laughed and reminisced. I said, the only deal was that the soldiers all gathered around you when you were injured. They did the same thing with me. And i was telling them, to get away from me because all you are going to do is get me shot again. But when the medic is hit, it has a psychological effect. , aemember this old sergeant big burly black eye came to me and said doc, youve been hit. I dont know if youre going to live or not. [laughing] i say, thanks a lot. Of course, the chopper came down. We were in a mountainous area. The air was very thin. They loaded about six of us into a chopper and of a chopper had trouble getting altered to. Was lying across and my feet made out on one hand on one end and my head laid out on the other end. They tried one time and came back down. They tried again. They finally got out of there. They got me to the hospital. I think from the time i was shot, within 45 minutes, i was on the operating table at the hospital. The next morning, the doctor came in who had operated on me and showed me the bullet here taken out of me. I wanted the bullet. He said im putting this in my office so that people understand. This is my trophy he said. [laughing] i underwent one operation in vietnam and two more operations at walter reed. That you had mentioned were married when you went to vietnam . So, when you came back, if you were injured, you came back to where . Hank thomas i tried to go back ,o school at Howard University but i had some things i had to take care of with reference to my family. My oldest sister came to live with me in washington dc. She had been subject to some abuse by my stepfather. My family. Father. Twho was her fo so, she came to live with me. I had a family that i now had to take care of. I could not do that by working a parttime job. So, i dropped out of school with the idea of may be coming back a little bit later on. I did not have a lot of the postcombat stress that some of the Vietnam Veterans had. I think mine was delayed if you will. I did see some things in vietnam that even today, when i think about them, or try to talk them out them, i get a little emotional. Of civilians who i saw that were keeled. Civilians in any war, any modern war, always get caught in the middle of the soldiers, whether it is the north vietnamese soldiers, the south vietnamese soldiers, whether he was us. Civilians always get caught in the middle. Accidental fire or artillery shells falling in the wrong village, all of these, they kill people. They kill children. As a medic, ice law other , but as aaw it too medic, i saw some of this. And it was, even today, many, many years after, there are a few of those things that ice all that still haunt me those things that i saw that still haunts me in terms of civilians that were killed. There are times when my wife has to wake me up when im having nightmares. There were a couple of times when i got really, really scared, because i woke up hitting her, because i was dreaming. We had a problem with the m16 rifle when we first went over. We were told you dont put it on automatic fire because it will jam and it did jam. So to me, anytime i had these are four orthere five north vietnamese soldiers coming at me and i make a mistake of putting the weapon on automatic fire and the first burst, the gun jams and now ive got to run or use a gun as a club to fight off the soldiers. One night, i was hitting my and that just scared the devil out of me. It is happened a couple of times before. So she knows that any time i move my arm or shake it, she will wake me up. But thoseas frequent, were the things that kind of bother me. Also, the fact that i am treating somebody and i am running out of damages, and i cannot top the bleeding. Recurringthere nightmares that i have as well. When i first went to the wall after seeing soldiers get to the wall and emotionally breakdown, i said, that is not going to happen to me. I did not go to the wall, probably until about five years after he was there to riyadh and surely enough, when i got there and i saw the names of the three medics of mine that were killed, and one who was very close to me, alpha jackson, something about seeing those names, taking that piece of paper and graphite that that gave you, it gets to you. You know, you see it in many war memorials, but not that many with the names of their. There. The names you call out that persons name and you look for the name of your buddy when you go to that wall. That still gets to me sometimes. So your sister, your stepsister came to visit with you. Hank thomas and your wife did you have children . Hank thomas i have a total of two grown children and five grandchildren and one great grandchild. My sister has a daughter who was in the marines. In vietnam andrs has essentially retired from the marine corps. My family is a military family. Even today, we have several members who are still in the military and have retired. So, we went through that period, but i never did go back to school. I got started in business when i. Oved to atlanta my mother wanted me to be a schoolteacher. Ive had a good life. I living the American Dream and am the american story. I first started off with operating a dairy queen restaurant. From a dairy queen restaurant, i bought a burger king restaurant. From burger king my first mcdonalds in 1982 and before i retired, i wound up owning a total of five Mcdonald Restaurants and for marriott hotels. Though, life has been good to me. I am shall we say, living the americans worry and the American Dream. Host when you came back from vietnam, did you rejoin the movement . Hank thomas on a different level. I am in business now, and i have a family, so i do things differently. I was going to demonstrations and i did not want to go to jail to riyadh i would tell my colleagues when we got together, some of them would razz me by saying hank has gone over to the enemy. He is going into business, he has become a capitalist. I said, im still a revolutionary, because the idea of a black man being in business is a revolutionary idea, so i am still fighting the fight. [laughing] and i became successful in business. The thing my wife and i have done, we give back. Providing scholarships. Supporting worthy cause. I used to say to folks, some of my business colleagues, anytime we needed something in the black community, that was for the good of the community, we had to go to white folks for it. We had to go to the man. I reminded them, those who were in his nest doing well, i said, we are the man now you riyadh i am the man. So, when black kids need scholarships, when the schools need somebody to step up to the plate to finance various things, thats one of the things i do. And very, very proud of it. Host do you mind talking about your stepfather . When you were growing up . Hank thomas i dont mind. He was an individual. He never learned to read or write, but he could fix practically anything. He could wire a house, he could fix a car. I used to say, had he gone to school he couldve been a mechanical engineer, electrical engineer. In this little town of wadley, georgia, there was a sawmill. He kept all of that machinery going. Anytime the machinery broke down, lg was the man who would fix it. Of course, they would not call him a man at the time, they would call him the boy, he would fix it. They would get him out of jail on saturday night so he would be in work monday morning. Nevermind that he drank all his earnings. Maybe we might not have food in the house, but they got him to work so that he could fix whatever went wrong and this type of thing. Whened to say things like he got drunk i would rather die and go to hell than be treated the way i was treated. I had no idea what he was talking about. None of us did. But as i learned later and understood what lack men went through, he was talking about the way he was being treated. There he was, a very intelligent man in terms of his skills, and he was probably being paid just enough to keep his family from starving. So what did he do . He drank. Even though the county we lived in was a dry county, the sheriff houses,l of the shop and that was where all of the liquor was made, the moonshine and whatever you riyadh he was never treated like a man. Was, you taked the hurt that you feel, and you transfer it to the people who are closest to you. He was a black man who did not know how to show love his family, he only knew the way he had been treated. Later, while i could not forgive him for what he is done to me and his family, years later, i understood. The one regret i had, i said i never got the chance to tell him that i forgave him. I did not forget, but i forgive him for what he did to me and my mother and the rest of his family. Because i knew what he was going through. Law, theyn a court of would say that he was temporarily insane. And he was. Due to the way that he had been treated, and that is what it happened to so many black men. When you understood what happened, both during slavery ended during the jim crow era, it was an absolute wonder that every black man was not crazy, because of the way they were treated, and the families suffered. Host how did your mother deal with it . Hank thomas in a stoic way, the way all black women deal with it. She felt it was gods will. Did not like it but it was gods way of punishing her and that eventually, my mother is very , very religious woman to this always her conversation with me is, are you going to church . She knows im not. So rather than to lie to her, i say, maybe next week, mama. Thats the way she dealt with it. She just said that it was the lords will, and that is the way she still feels about it today. I understand that you started working at a very young age. Is that true . Your first job . Hank thomas picking cotton. [laughing] i mustve been 7 or eight. My mother made the cotton sack for me. In that area of the country , blacks did not go to school until generally in november, after all of the crops were in. Inte kids went to school late august or september, but we had to get the crops in. It was cotton in that portion of georgia. Some other area, it was potatoes or picking beans. Education took a backseat to what the farmers needed at that particular time. And of course, all of the money i made, which may have in a dollar or 1. 25 per day, i put it on the table, and that was the money that was used to buy groceries, especially when lg drank up all of the money. Host i have one more question. Reading your biography as a young man, one thing emerges. Which is that did the discipline that you learned during the freedom rides help prepare you for what was needed in the army and combat . Hank thomas i dont necessarily think so. One of the things im grateful for, is that i always had a sense of what was right and what was wrong at a very early age. I always knew where i was in my life as a kid living in poverty, that was not where i was so post to be and that was not where i was going to be. I knew that education was the key, my mother taught me that. I learned how to read before i went to school. Shealy had a sixth grade education, but i was reading by the time i was for. Went to school. By the time i was four years old. I have this inner sense of discipline that i now attribute to the jeans that i inherited from miss washington. This woman, right after slavery, the emancipation proclamation, two or three other people and she, organized a church of freed slaves. Grounds where the modern day church sits is the original plot of ground that they bought their riyadh this woman had this kind of discipline and sense of grounds where the modernknowino those to be. So, i credited that to the jeans that i received from her thatted that to the genes i received from her. Host thank you very much. Hank thomas you are welcome. I watch of landmark cases live from the Constitutional Center in philadelphia. A review of 12 historic cases to be featured in the series. At 12 p. M. , import week reviewing ceremony for former president barack obama and former first Lady Michelle obama. On book tv on cspan2 at new historic cases to be featured in the series. At 12eastern, the 2018 savanna k authors at 9 p. M. Also, an interview with colson Pulitzer Prize winner. At 6 30 p. M. , scholars explore the relationships between president s ronald reagan, george h. W. Bush and russian leader, Mikael Gober Charles mikhail gorbachev. What should this on monday on the cspan networks. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. Today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, and the supreme along with Public Policy events in washington dc and around the country. This is brought to you by your provider. Llite next on the presidency, a look at the relationships between president George H W Bush and will clinton, and russian president boris yeltsin, and how they influence the new russia after the dissolution of the ussr. The university of virginias center convened scholars at the conference looking at the complicated history between the u. S. And russian leaders in the 20th century. The discussion included assessments of president s like ronald reagan, and john kennedy are and their russian counterparts. This is
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