George Trujillo |
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George’s attitude towards the War I don’t believe in war but I believe in defending you country. From my point of view it was service and dedication to the oath that you had taken on entering the service. Not a popular war obviously, Vietnam, no war is good. It was our time to serve. The people that I served with, we did our best; we served honorably, we served with dedication, we fought the foe that was put in front of us. It was not ours to choose it was just our time. We did the best we could and I really want to stress that the guys that I was there with looked out for each other, kept each other alive, and made sure that we were honorable guys. Apocalypse Now, that was surreal. Platoon, some of the combat scenes were very realistic but some of the things that they showed I never saw; the hardcore pot-smoking and things like that. Maybe in later years. I was there in ’68 and early’ 69. I don’t know how things changed after I was there but that’s not what I saw. George’s attitude towards American protesters of the War I believe in protest. I believe that part of what I served for to defend was the right to protest. I just don’t think that part of protesting should be bringing criticism to those who are defending your freedom. That was the more difficult thing for me. Whether they realized it or not that’s what we were doing. Our time was the Vietnam time, but we were still serving to protect their freedoms and part of their freedom was the ability to protest. Anytime, if somebody truly feels there’s a need for protest they certainly have the right to, as long as they’re not forcing their opinion on someone else. When I returned from Vietnam, our flight came into an air-force base out in Riverside. On the return flight we had personnel from the Marine Corp, the Army, the Navy, all services were on the flight coming back. Once I left the air port I caught a bus back to Long Beach and I got off the bus in downtown Long Beach where the station used to be. I had just taken my two C-bags out of the storage compartment on the bus and this girl had come up to me and she was looking at my chest and she says, “Are you just back from Vietnam?”. I said “Yeah” and I thought she was going to say welcome home but she started calling me names and I was kind of dumbfounded about that. I didn’t understand what that was all about because it wasn’t like that before I left. I think that year, ’68, might have been a turning point as far as the views as the American people. A lot of the young people started getting radical views. We weren’t the bad guys, we just didn’t have a popular war. Most of us, all of us, really, served honorably. We didn’t do anything bad. We served our country just as our fathers did during WWII or WWI or any other conflict that we were ever involved in.
Object Description
Profile of | George Trujillo |
Title | It wasn't ours to choose, it was just our time |
Profile bio | George Trujillo was in high school when the Vietnam War began. He enlisted in the Marine Corps during his final semester of his high school at the age of seventeen, graduated on June 27, celebrated his eighteenth birthday in boot camp and was deployed in Vietnam for a thirteen-month tour of duty in late January 1968, just prior to the Tet offensive. He was a member of the 1st and 3rd Marine Corp that fought in the northern I Corps, a much-contested area close to the DMZ. George served as an ammunition and explosive ordinance disposal technician. The responsibilities of his job included clearing unexploded ordinances, munitions caches, etc. He fought with one main unit but, given the nature of his assignment, was frequently relocated for temporary additional duty. He currently lives in Long Beach with his wife of thirty-three years. |
Profiler bio | Andy was born and raised in Hong Kong, and came to the United States three years ago. He is currently a junior at the USC Marshall School of Business. Julian is a junior from Pennsylvania majoring in Biology and Art History at the University of Southern California. |
Subject |
Vietnam war enlistment volunteer deployment weapons technician service veteran |
Profiled by | Wong, Chaklam Andy; Hricik, Julian; Shao, Ying |
Profile date | 2011-04-01 |
Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Long Beach |
Geographic subject (county) | Los Angeles |
Geographic subject (state) | California |
Geographic subject (country) | USA; Vietnam |
Coverage date | 1968 |
Publisher (of the original version) | http://anotherwarmemorial.com/george-trujillo/ |
Type |
images video |
Format | 1 image; 4 video files (00:13:58); 5 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 | trujillogeorge |
Description
Profile of | George Trujillo |
Title | Interview Transcription |
Format | 1 transcript, 1p. |
Filename | trujillogeorge-vid2_tr2.pdf |
Full text | George’s attitude towards the War I don’t believe in war but I believe in defending you country. From my point of view it was service and dedication to the oath that you had taken on entering the service. Not a popular war obviously, Vietnam, no war is good. It was our time to serve. The people that I served with, we did our best; we served honorably, we served with dedication, we fought the foe that was put in front of us. It was not ours to choose it was just our time. We did the best we could and I really want to stress that the guys that I was there with looked out for each other, kept each other alive, and made sure that we were honorable guys. Apocalypse Now, that was surreal. Platoon, some of the combat scenes were very realistic but some of the things that they showed I never saw; the hardcore pot-smoking and things like that. Maybe in later years. I was there in ’68 and early’ 69. I don’t know how things changed after I was there but that’s not what I saw. George’s attitude towards American protesters of the War I believe in protest. I believe that part of what I served for to defend was the right to protest. I just don’t think that part of protesting should be bringing criticism to those who are defending your freedom. That was the more difficult thing for me. Whether they realized it or not that’s what we were doing. Our time was the Vietnam time, but we were still serving to protect their freedoms and part of their freedom was the ability to protest. Anytime, if somebody truly feels there’s a need for protest they certainly have the right to, as long as they’re not forcing their opinion on someone else. When I returned from Vietnam, our flight came into an air-force base out in Riverside. On the return flight we had personnel from the Marine Corp, the Army, the Navy, all services were on the flight coming back. Once I left the air port I caught a bus back to Long Beach and I got off the bus in downtown Long Beach where the station used to be. I had just taken my two C-bags out of the storage compartment on the bus and this girl had come up to me and she was looking at my chest and she says, “Are you just back from Vietnam?”. I said “Yeah” and I thought she was going to say welcome home but she started calling me names and I was kind of dumbfounded about that. I didn’t understand what that was all about because it wasn’t like that before I left. I think that year, ’68, might have been a turning point as far as the views as the American people. A lot of the young people started getting radical views. We weren’t the bad guys, we just didn’t have a popular war. Most of us, all of us, really, served honorably. We didn’t do anything bad. We served our country just as our fathers did during WWII or WWI or any other conflict that we were ever involved in. |
Archival file | Volume5/trujillogeorge-vid2_tr2.pdf |