Paul R. Alwine |
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Normal Routine
Question: What kind of experiences did you have?
In some respects it was somewhat boring, because we had our Marine ground troops on board, they didn’t have anything to do except clean their weapons, workout a lot, we had no workout facilities, ships didn’t have those then. And so they would do a lot of PT (Physical training) on the deck, hanger deck, and up on the flight deck. A lot of running around but it was normal routine, running the ship, just dealing with personnel problems, trying to find out what was going on, so it was not a lot of high level action at that point.
Interviewer: When you returned to the United States, because you said you were there only for a short period of time…
Yeah we were there probably off the coast of Vietnam probably for about five months max. I didn’t say, but we did go land some marines up by Da Nang at some point. So we pulled into Da Nang Harbor and offloaded a bunch of troops and helicopters at Da Nang. Da Nang was a beautiful harbor, almost a sleepy fishing village type of environment. So I had some nice memories of what it looked like at that point, because it was still relatively undeveloped as an American stronghold. In 2011, when my wife and I went to Vietnam, we went through Da Nang again and I couldn’t believe there were golf resorts, high rise condos and all kinds of things; I mean it was just a bustling activity site. In 1964, it was pretty primitive at that point. The other thing was that in that time period, there were approximately 25,000 Americans in country, in Vietnam. And so again, it was mostly advisors. Some units began to show up but our involvement was still on the early side. But as I said, we really had the expectation that six to nine months we were gonna kick some serious butt, drop a lot of bombs, put some hurt on a lot of people, and they were gonna say, “ok, alright, we’ll go away, and we’ll go back to North Vietnam and you guys can take care of things in the south.”
Object Description
| Profile of | Paul R. Alwine |
| Title | Service to the Country |
| Profile bio | Captain Paul R. Alwine, Jr. is a native of Binghamton, New York. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management in 1962. He was commissioned through the Naval ROTC program, was assigned to the Navy Supply Corps School in Athens, Georgia and completed the Basic Qualification Course for Supply Corps officers. While on deployment in the Western Pacific in 1964, the VALLEY FORGE supported early military action in South Vietnam immediately after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. In July 1966 Captain Alwine completed his active duty and affiliated with the Navy Reserve while pursuing a civilian career in the computer and information technology field. During the ensuing years he served in a variety of Navy Reserve Supply Corps units involving procurement, defense contract management, aviation supply, and served on the staff of Commander, Navy Reserve Readiness Command Region 19 in San Diego. During annual active duty periods he served afloat on the USS CONSTELLATION (CV 64), the USS RANGER (CV 61), and ashore at west coast Naval Supply Centers, Naval Air Stations, Defense Logistics Agency commands, as well as duty at the Naval Supply Systems Command in Washington, DC. Captain Alwine served as Commanding Officer of four Navy Reserve units during his career. Additionally, he completed the aviation supply warfare qualifications and became the first Navy Reserve officer on the west coast to earn the “wings of gold” of a Naval Aviation Supply Officer. In 1970 he received a Master of Business Administration from California State University Fullerton, and in 1982 he completed an Executive Sales program conducted by the Harvard Graduate School of Business. As a member of the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro Aero Club he completed general aviation pilot training, earning Commercial Pilot, Multi-engine, Instrument In 1992 Captain Alwine retired after completing a 30-year Navy career. His personal decorations include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Navy Commendation Medal and numerous unit and campaign awards. In civilian life he is a retired sales executive from the IBM Corporation, and is the President of the Naval ROTC Alumni League at the University of Southern California. He resides with his wife in Irvine, CA. |
| Profiler bio | Kyle Curley is a senior studying Industrial and Systems Engineering.; Sungwon Byun is a junior studying Chemical Engineering. Kasey Owens-Shelton is a senior studying Psychology.; Wenzhen Gong is a senior and masters student studying Electrical Engineering. |
| Subject |
American, Profile Reservist US Navy Veterans Affairs Viet Nam Captain Carrier Gulf of Tonkin Marines Navy Paul Alwine ROTC Supply Corps USC Vietnam |
| Profiled by | Curley, Kyle; Byun, Sungwon; Owens-Shelton, Kasey; Gong, Wenzhen |
| Profile date | 2014-04-11 |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Binghamton; Los Angeles; Athens; Irvine; Da Nang |
| Geographic subject (county) | Broome |
| Geographic subject (state) | California |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA; Taiwan; Japan; Philippines; China; Singapore; Vietnam |
| Coverage date | 1940; 1962; 1964; 2011 |
| Publisher (of the original version) | http://anotherwarmemorial.com/paul-r-alwine/ |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Type |
images video |
| Format | 1 image; 4 video files (00:14:20); 4 transcripts |
| Language | English |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Part of collection | An Other War Memorial -- Memories of the American War in Viet Nam |
| Filename | alwinepaul |
Description
| Profile of | Paul R. Alwine |
| Title | Normal Routine |
| Format | 1 transcript, 1 p. |
| Filename | alwinepaul-vid3_tr3.pdf |
| Full text | Normal Routine Question: What kind of experiences did you have? In some respects it was somewhat boring, because we had our Marine ground troops on board, they didn’t have anything to do except clean their weapons, workout a lot, we had no workout facilities, ships didn’t have those then. And so they would do a lot of PT (Physical training) on the deck, hanger deck, and up on the flight deck. A lot of running around but it was normal routine, running the ship, just dealing with personnel problems, trying to find out what was going on, so it was not a lot of high level action at that point. Interviewer: When you returned to the United States, because you said you were there only for a short period of time… Yeah we were there probably off the coast of Vietnam probably for about five months max. I didn’t say, but we did go land some marines up by Da Nang at some point. So we pulled into Da Nang Harbor and offloaded a bunch of troops and helicopters at Da Nang. Da Nang was a beautiful harbor, almost a sleepy fishing village type of environment. So I had some nice memories of what it looked like at that point, because it was still relatively undeveloped as an American stronghold. In 2011, when my wife and I went to Vietnam, we went through Da Nang again and I couldn’t believe there were golf resorts, high rise condos and all kinds of things; I mean it was just a bustling activity site. In 1964, it was pretty primitive at that point. The other thing was that in that time period, there were approximately 25,000 Americans in country, in Vietnam. And so again, it was mostly advisors. Some units began to show up but our involvement was still on the early side. But as I said, we really had the expectation that six to nine months we were gonna kick some serious butt, drop a lot of bombs, put some hurt on a lot of people, and they were gonna say, “ok, alright, we’ll go away, and we’ll go back to North Vietnam and you guys can take care of things in the south.” |
| Archival file | Volume3/alwinepaul-vid3_tr3.pdf |
