Looking Back
How has your perspective on the war changed since before, during, and now?
Well, before the war, for one, I had no idea really what was going on, you know. I had a friend, that was one of my best friends growing up, that was, he had entered the Marine Corps and he was killed in action, while I was still in flight school; that had a great impact on me. But, when I got there, I had noth- no preconceived idea what to expect. I mean, he was the Marine Corps, he was a ground pounder, and I was going over there as an Army aviator, so I had no clue, even though at flight school they developed the different scenarios of what you’re gonna see and what you’re gonna do and what you’re probably gonna come up against. It’s just, didn’t match up with the country, and the training when we got there, so there’s nothing to compare it for exactly what happened, but as far as preconceived ideas go, I really didn’t… I didn’t know what to expect.
How do you think that the war changed you? Like do you think that you would be in a different place right now, had you not gone to the war?
I think by going there I’m in a better place now than I would’ve if I would’ve been left to my own means. I mean, when I was in high school, I really had no clue what I wanted to do. I knew I was, I actually got some scholarship offers from different colleges, but I knew that I probably would have flunked out or been drafted right away. So I heard what about they called the War and Officer Flight School Program, and I took the test when I was in High School. I passed the test and they guaranteed me a flight school spot when I graduated from basic training. After that, you’re left on your own. If you flunk out of flight school, you’re gonna be in the infantry. And I had never flown before, I had no preconception about what flying a helicopter was all about, I had never even seen one up close and personal. So basically, when I successfully got out of flight school, I had a skill that I never had before. I enjoy doing it, I enjoy flying, so I learned something very valuable. And then I finished my active duty tour and went with the National Guard just about right away and continued my flying career, and that really set my career up from there as what I was gonna do flying. I also had the opportunity to go to school after I got off active duty, and I did that, but at that time, that didn’t relate to my flying career or wants and desires, it was just to go out and get a degree.
Have you been back to Vietnam since the war?
No, I haven’t.
Is this something that you would like to do?
It’s something that I’ve been trying to plan to do for quite a few years now, but I do have a son that’s a junior in high school so maybe after he goes bye-bye we will have time to plan.
If you were in our position today, would you go to Vietnam willingly, knowing everything you know and the experiences you would go through?
I would go back in a second, I mean it’s not all about, a lot of it is all politically driven, there is no doubt about that. I mean even with what’s going on today, there’s more politics involved than you’d want to think about, but basically, you know when you go into service, you’re expected to go where they tell you and do what they tell you, and that’s part of the commitment you make when you, either enlist, whether you go to a ROTC Program and get that commission. That’s all part of the deal you’ve made with the government before you go, and you know people expect to live up to that deal. And most of the people I’ve known in my military career, they willingly looked up to that. Very few people… There was one guy in our unit that actually came to a point over there that, they refused to fly anymore and he gave up his wings, and they sent him home. People that didn’t live up to what they committed to were very few and far between. But I would go back in a minute, especially, I’ll say, the friends I’ve made over there. I belong to an organization called the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association, and we have reunions annually, and our unit was particularly close, for a couple reasons. One was at the very end, there was a, I guess you want to call it a battle, called Lam Son 719, and out unit was one of the first ones in when they had the Cambodia-Laotian Invasion. They lost every ship except one in our company, and we had multiple people killed, so it kind of strengthened the bond between everybody and everybody, and every year we get together and we probably have, last year in our mini-reunion they had over one-thousand pilots from all different periods show up with their families; and it’s a particularly close relationship and a bond that we share that a lot of people just don’t understand.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Well not really, you know like I said, I put in over 20 months over there and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’ve had several recall notices, when I was in the National Guard that… she (points to his wife) kind of threw one away. I was recalled to go to Desert Storm, Kosovo and a few of those other places but I never really activated our units, so, one of those things. I guess if I wouldn’t have married I would have volunteered to go. So, but the military experience as a whole, was, it taught me a lot and gave me a profession, which I, I flew for LA county Sheriff for 25 years and just left that about two years ago. I lost my medical certificate, due to some factors of Agent Orange exposure, that, kind of has affected me in other ways, but that’s probably the only, that’s probably the only bad thing that I can think of that has followed me back all these years, and a lot of the other guys in our unit, was the effects that Agent Orange caused because our unit did spray it out of aircraft and a lot of our guys died young of Orange related illnesses, you know, diabetes, and heart disease, and some cancers, but that’s probably the worst thing that came out of the long term effects of the war that I can think of.