Part 1
Origins
It all started about 1972, when I got in little trouble with the law, so in a way around that time you go into the service and it would be relieved. So a friend and I went to a Marine Corps recruiter, we told him that we wanted to sign up. I always wanted to be a marine watching John Wayne growing up and he made me want to be one of the best.
My dad was a flight engineer for the Starlifters. He would constantly be dropping off supplies back and forth in Vietnam. I went to San Diego and there I took my basic training. My brother was about a month and a half ahead of me. Around that time when I was at the firing range, the Chaplain wanted to see me and told me my mother was gravely ill and asked if I wanted to go see her and I said yes. But, once I got processed out it was already too late and she already passed. My brother and I suffered the loss of our mother.
During that time I was at Camp Pendleton and I was infantry 03-11 infantry since it was a 2-year enlistment. I told my girlfriend at that time, “Don’t worry babe they’re not going to send me anything.” Well I got my orders to go over seas to Phnom Penh. At that time the Khmer Rouge had already surrounded the city. We got up early that morning must have been like 3 o’clock in the morning. We flew to Cambodia and landed on the soccer field and we made the Landing Zone. One by one they started bringing in the trucks with US personnel and Cambodians that work for the State Department and they were flying them out. We got aboard our Sea Stallions and we saw all the people there and we left. We got on ship later on and that’s when the Khmer Rouge came in and we heard stories and they were marching the people out of Phnom Penh and that’s when we heard about the killings at the killing fields. I feel bad that we left. It hurt me and I still think to myself why didn’t we stay longer, why didn’t we help more people but it had happened so fast because the Khmer Rouge were already in the city.