1963. Welcome back. Thank you. What are you in town for . For the funeral of a , art ryan. We interviewed him, fortunately. And are sorry to hear about his passing, but we are glad to see you in town. Tell us a little bit about your time with us, where did you grow . P wrecks i was born in 1939. I grew up in the mountains of tennessee and North Carolina come together. West of chattanooga. Or east. What did your parents do . My daddy was an engineer. Civil engineer. He built dams. My mother was a schoolteacher. Did you have any siblings . Brother, have an older two years older, and an older sister, three years older. I was and groups. An oops. Tell us what it was like growing up. Farm ind a seven acre the mountains. Very poor, very role. Nearby had more money than we did. I felt bad. Why dont we make more money . He said i would but your mother wont let me. When i was in high school i rode the school bus for 25 miles 20 day twice a day. Wow. Yeah it was pretty remote. , that mustve taken nearly an hour to get to school. Yep. Was at the same school your mom taught at . No, she taught at the local grammar school. She taught me for the first through third grades. Then i moved on. To the next school. Then she quit teaching. Her health was very poor. When i was born she was told that she would never get out of bed again. The beauty of it is when she died at the age of 92, she was walking half a mile two days a week. Ok. Thats wonderful. And your dad was an engineer . Yes he was from georgia tech. Was there any military tradition in your family . No, not at all. What were your interests as a young boy . Hunt, fish. I took school seriously because i knew it was important. I enjoyed farming. I had a pet cow. Did you have a lot of animals . We had, i think, a dozen cows and a couple of pigs, and the Chicken House. A big Chicken House, that really helped our income. Did you sell the eggs . Yes. We had roosters so we sold fertilized eggs which brings a better price than regular eggs. In the Chicken House, you dont want all this but this is interesting, this is American History. The Chicken House had nets along the side, they built a little trolley where you put the chicken and basket in and you just get the eggs. Every once in a while you would think what is that . And there would be a little king snake eating the eggs. You had to get them out and haul them away so they cant kill the king snake. They are good snakes. Because the firm in . Vermin . Yeah and they will kill other snakes. They will kill a rattlesnake. That was sort of meat. Well. Do you remember the first time you reached in and grabbed a snake . I dont remember the first time. It got to be sort of old hat. Thats nice that you had all sorts of animals on the farm. I imagine that taught you responsibility at a young age. Yes. I had to milk a cow every morning before going to school. What time did you have to leave for school . Crexendo remember. You must have had to get up early to milk the cows. Yeah, i probably left the house around 7 00. And then walk half a mile to catch the school bus. Did you play any sports . As a senior in high school, the first time our Little High School got football. I played football as a senior. What position did you play . I was a blocking back. We ran a single wing. It was fun. How did you hear about west point . I guess i saw it on the long gray line on television. Im pretty sure that was my first introduction. I was impressed. Dad told me and my brother, if either one of us were interested in going to west point he thought he could get us an appointment. My brother was not interested at all. Dad did not have enough money to send me to a regular college, so i thought i will go to west point. It would be free. Ok. Where did your brother and up going . He flunked out of georgia tech. Then he flew airplanes for delta until he turned 60. During that time he went to Georgia State and got a bachelors in Business Administration or Something Like that. How about your sister . She got her masters in fine arts from the university of georgia. She loved to do it but never really made didnt really do anything, didnt make any money with it. She got married i think three times. Young boys. She got married and has, i think three young boys. You showed up to west point, you must have showed up in 1959. What is your most vivid memory of your first day at the academy . It is also heard of hazy. At. S getting screamed i wasnt expecting that. But thats what happens, so thats what happened. How was your training . It was very, very good. And very demanding. I was not expecting it either. But i appreciated it. What was your favorite part of the training . Not the running. I guess the shooting, i grew up hunting. I enjoyed the rifle and pistol. Or m1s . U shoot m14s i think the m1s. The world war ii style rifle with the eight round clip. Excellent. Tell me about what it was like once the Academic Year started. It was demanding but it was enjoyable. I went to college for two years before i went to west point. Where did you go . I went to Young Harris College for a year. A little methodist college. And North Georgia College for a year. North Georgia College is a fine college. It really is. I went to young harris because daddy told us kids we can go anywhere he wanted to as long as we went to young harris. Then i told him i wanted to go to west point, and he said well we should send you to north georgia to get you squared away. What did north georgia help you with . All the military discipline. The marching. North georgia is one of the five military colleges. Bmi, city dough city dell the citadel. I have forgotten what the other ones were. But it was the only one that was coed. Was it coed . Yes. How was that . That was good. It was nice to have girls on campus. You were prepared for the marching and some of the military study. You felt pretty prepared academically . Yes, i did. What were some of your favorite classes . Math, chemistry, and mechanics. My worst class was spanish. I have no knack for foreign language. Physically how was it for you . It was fine. I was in good shape. Militarily, your summer training how was it what sort of training did you do . Cap buckner was the best. That was Field Training as well as physical training. I learned a lot at camp buckner. This is what a patrol is. This is how you do stuff. Do you feel that west point prepared you adequately for when you got into the army and went to the basic course, rangers course, things like that . Absolutely. As you went through west point, it became time to choose a branch. What were you interested in and why . Armor for the first couple of years. That is the combat arm, looked pretty exciting to me. Then i figured there is no place for armor in vietnam, so im going to go infantry. Was vietnam starting to get ramped up . Yeah. What were you hearing about vietnam as a cadet . Not much other than the communists were invading the place and we were trying to protect them and save them and stuff. We were there for the noble cause. Ok. How was graduation for you . It was wonderful. Were your folks able to come up . My dad was. That was neat. What did he think about it, when was the first time your dad came up to west point . Graduation. What did he think of the place . He was impressed. He doesnt say a lot about being impressed, but he was. After graduation, tell me about some of the courses you had before you got out to your unit. Basic force, jump school, ranger. I guess that was it. Then i got to the 82nd which was great. Who are you with . 325 alpha company. You arrived in time for the Dominican Republic. Tell me about that . That is something of a whole know about. That was excellent. I had my Second Company commander then. My first one was west point graduate. This guy was a north georgia graduate. Had you known him a north georgia . Yeah, he was class of 59. A neat guy. We got in town, unopposed landing. Airplane, c130s. He told me, ok, take your platoon and go down these two blocks. And set up a blocking position. I said ok. I put half the platoon on the sidewalk and told them to go forward and left, half the platoon on the sidewalk, look forward and right. I will just go down the middle. And i did. First time i got shot at. No damage done. I was surprised at what incoming rifle fire sounded like. Very sharp crack. It was, everybody shot a little bit. Settled down without incident. I went up on the second floor and i hope youre going to edit this stuff. Went into this room of this little hotel, immediately it was obvious that it was a brothel. That is the only time i spent tonight the night in a whore house. [laughter] was it a good Vantage Point . Yes, it was. And all the girls were gone. There was nobody there. It was a good Vantage Point. What were you doing in the Dominican Republic . Somebody was trying to overthrow the government as i understand it. I dont remember the names. Somebody that we thought was communist was trying to turn it into another haiti, and we went down to stop it. And i think we did. You must have been rigged to jump, or did you know that youre going to do an air landing. We knew that we were going to do an air landing. Aside from the sporadic fire that you took walking down the street was there any other , firing at you . No. How long were you there . Two months. During that time i was able to go to a beautiful beach. I didnt know it had such beautiful beach. But it did. From there i went to vietnam. What did you do for the two months they were in the that you were in the Dominican Republic . Patrols or just security . I guess it was all just security. It was all in town. Did you draw any lessons from your time in the Dominican Republic that helped you in vietnam . Just what incoming rifle fire sounds like. Thats something good to know. So when you hear it again and it is more powerful, you are not as surprised. Right. So your first time in vietnam was from 1965 to 1967. Who did you serve with . The first year i was with the vietnamese airborne and we were eighth battalion based in saigon and we traveled all over the the fourth core. Never met the fourth quarter. Fourth core. The eighth vietnamese battalion was the finest troops ive ever served with. They really were. On one particular operation, they got the american president ial unit citation. What made them the finest troops you ever served with . To give you an example, our battalion only had about 350 men. We were always a little standby. The whole regiment tried to attack, supported with tanks and armored personnel carriers. Stopped, turned, and ran. Have you ever seen a whole division run, it is just awesome. Our little Battalion Commander said we go, we go. And we did. Went through where those guys had turned and ran, and it was good. The Company Commander was a super guy. He came back to go to the infantry advanced course when my parents lived in georgia. He spent the weekend with them. Nice. They thought he was great, he he thought they were great. So he got the georgia home cooking . Yeah, he really enjoyed that. We were really bogged down. I saw he pulled out his little derringer pistol and i thought he is going to start shooting his troops. So i jumped up and ran over here and said i will go over here on this side and as i was going up a molotov cocktail at the mud and went sideways. It went off. I remember sailing through the ar through the air. When i woke up they were next to me. I got up and trotted over to him and he looked up and, oh, i thought you were dead. Not yet. That was good. What sort of training did you do with the vietnamese soldiers . Actually, i did not do any training with them. I just worked with them on operations. My biggest job was to coordinate air support. We never had artillery. Always out of artillery range. Ok. How responsive was the air support . Very, very, very good. It was excellent. What would you usually call for . A particular type of air support or whatever was up there . Just whatever was available. Ordinarily, nothing bigger than a 250 pound bomb. That is uncomfortable. The strafing. Sometimes rockets. Sort of a neat thing. We have a place down on the beach in eastern North Carolina. There is a little golf course there that i got to know and play there some in the wintertime. We get to telling lies and war story sunday. I knew that he was in the navy. We started telling tales and identified three different times when i was stomping through the jungle and he was helping out in his a6. Quick stats pretty neat. It is. Fantastic. It really is. So you call him in and they would come in and help you out . Yeah. We always had a pack with us, so the pack would control the airplane. Thats wonderful. Was it mostly jets or did you have helicopters coming as well . I had helicopters some, what i really liked was the big old a1e. That thing would come in real slow and real accurate. And if it got hit a couple of times, it didnt care. Did you ever have the opportunity to jump with the vietnamese . Yes i did. That was excellent. It was, i got in the country and a week later we had our little combat jump. It was unopposed, which was good. Very, very high trees on the lz. A couple of vietnamese got caught in the trees. They slid down as far as they could and then turned loose. They broke a leg or broker back. Or broke a act. A back. It is high, tall trees. Any other operations while you are working with the battalion . We used to go to a lot, it was a special forces camp. We always ran into stuff there. One night we all as head of we always had a vietnamese doctor with us. He went to my boss and said that we have the medevac. We have to do it tonight. I had malaria. I did not realize how bad it was. A helicopter came in in the middle of the night, took me out and took me to the hospital there in saigon. My fever was a hundred four and half. They immediately stripped me off and put me in a bath full of ice water. This is real icewater because a bunch of ice cubes are floating around in it. And a nurse came in and said the fever was broke. I said ok, good. I got up and looked down at myself and you are going to have to edit this, there was nothing there. I said you have turned me into a woman. She said, dont worry, it will come back when you warm up. [laughter] things like that you remember. Quick so, you broke your fever. Yes. Did you get back to the vietnamese . When did you switch to a different unit . I was in the hospital about four or five days. A couple of captains there one was shot, who had written a book. I think he was class of 1961 or Something Like that. Anyway he and another guy , brought me a bottle of rose. They did not bring the bottle opener. So there we are at the hospital. You cant pull a cork out, maybe can push it in. We found a jack handle and started pushing the bottle exploded. Wine and broken glass and a female nurse comes around the corner. Those two captains just disappeared. She said lieutenant, you get back to your bed and i will decide if you need an icewater enema. So i ran back to bed and started snoring a little bit. A couple minutes later i heard the door open and close. Nothing more was ever said. I was there for about a week and went back to the battalion. And stayed till the end of the year. How Many American officers were with you in the battalion . Let me see. In the battalion there was only two officers and and an seo and usually a sergeant first class. And did you have an interpreter . Did they speak in of english . Enough english . I could speak a little bit of vietnamese. We had a course before going over. I could speak a little bit. Some of the officers could speak good english. The one i told you about who went to the advanced course spoke excellent english. I could speak no french. My boss could speak no french and our Battalion Commander spoke good french because he was with the french before North Vietnam fell. He refused to speak english, so i am not sure how they communicated. You mentioned the 86th pilot. Tell me one of the times that he was the one who came to your aid. This is when we were and in jungles. He needed help we were near a town, a coastal town. We saw them come in and zoom and said hey that was great. Come a little closer. It was just super. You said you got all up and down the country. What was your favorite area to operate in . I guess my favorite was first corps. The terrain was good, the weather was good. It was exciting being near the border. Down in, further south, near the cambodian border, i did not like that. Because we kept having to go back over and over and over again. Ok. That mustve have been the year of 1965. 1965, 1966. From 1966 to 1967 you were in an american unit. The first wolfhounds. First of the 27th alpha company. By this time you were a Company Commander . Yes. One of the senior advisers in the battalion, in the vietnamese airborne, was selected to command the battalion as a major and i said hey, sir if you give me a company i will extend. He said ok. He gave me a company and i extended. Two of us did, actually. The other one did not extend, the other was a Company Commander. A neat guy. He got killed. He got killed in the operation foley got hisy medal of honor. He must have been the charlie Company Commander than . Then . Right. When you arrived, as a new Company Commander, you already had a year of experience in vietnam. What did your soldiers think about that . I think they thought it was a good idea. I am still in contact with a couple of squad leaders and that company had experienced a very bad experience in july, before i got there in september or august. They took very heavy casualties. The Company Commander was relieved. Is Second Nature is you are always with the company. If the company was on the ground you are on the ground. Y