Stanley Kennedy |
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Looking Back When you have passion, fighting for a revolutionary cause, that’s what won the war. Do you agree? 100%. As the everyday soldier, they didn’t try to understand why they were fighting. They just knew that it wasn’t right to be one country and to divide it in half. That was their mindset. It was nothing about politics. They didn’t care what the leadership was about. All they knew was, “I got aunts and uncles up in Hanoi and I’m in Saigon, and we’re enemies!” Those people didn’t like that scenario. So they said, “France, we kicked your butt. America we kicked your butt. Who’s next? We don’t care if there are 50 or 100 of us dying to one of you. We aren’t gonna stop.” I understood the political pressure on the enemy. The Viet Cong. He could literally be your friend in the daytime. Him and his children. I was just one of the few that understood that. You don’t think your fellow soldiers understood that? I don’t. They couldn’t wait to kill, kill, kill. They wanted to do it. I was a little unique in that it wasn’t about the number of kills I could get; it was only about one life I wanted saved, and that was mine. I put all of my energy in that. I’m only politically involved now with the Vietnam era because I look back on it now and, in my opinion, it was a waste of American dollars and lives. For 20 plus years, the French and America tried to prevent the merging of North and South Vietnam, and in 1975, that happened. I look back on it and view my fellow soldiers that helping the cemetery grow beautiful by being buried in it because I could have been doing the same thing. And, in my opinion, for nothing. By the time I was discharged a year later, I was so off into substance abuse, all I could think about was just staying high. That’s all I could think about. Two weeks after I was home, I was so spaced, so loaded off of different types of substances that I literally ran into the rear end of a parked semi. A diesel. I totaled the car and did extensive damage to the diesel. It was all because I was a psychological mess. I was very emotional. I had survived 365 days of combat. The only reason I didn’t get decapitated was because I laid down to go to sleep on the seat while I was driving. So when I went up under the rear end of the diesel, I was… You went underneath it? Yes. I broke the steering wheel with my stomach, and it damaged my pancreas tremendously. I was in intensive care for 3 days. It was almost an attitude like, “What’s the use? Who cares? Life’s gonna do to me what it wants anyway, so I’m just gonna waste it and get wasted.” That kind of made me wake up and smell the coffee that I think I’d rather live than die. I had already been through that. By the time I got out of the hospital 10 days later, I survived as you see, and then I started trying to make my life make sense. Within a couple years, I decided to take the spiritual approach. That’s what helped me. I started dealing with a god that I believed in to turn my whole approach on life around because if I didn’t there’s no way I would be giving this interview.
Object Description
Profile of | Stanley Kennedy |
Title | I Was Focused on Getting Back Home |
Profile bio | Stanley Kennedy was born in April of 1947 in Yuma, Arizona. He was drafted into service for the U.S. army after dropping out of college for a semester break in 1966. He served in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade in Vietnam from March of 1967 until March of 1968. He spent most of that time in combat in the Mekong Delta. The largest engagement Stanley took part in was the Tet offensive, where he was in close combat with Viet Cong forces in and around Saigon. After leaving the military, Stanley developed a career in the garment manufacturing industry. He is now retired and living with his family in Southern California. Though it was not by choice, Stanley is proud to have obeyed and served his country. |
Profiler bio | Shonita Peterson is a senior from Los Angeles, CA majoring in Business Administration with a concentration in Leadership and Development.; Riti Chandiok is a junior from Northern California majoring in environmental studies. He aspires to go to law school after he graduates.; Michael Kennedy is a sophomore from Denver, Colorado majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Business Administration. |
Subject |
American Combat Drugs Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Stanley Kennedy |
Profiled by | Kennedy, Michael; Chandiok, Riti; Peterson, Shonita |
Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Yuma; Los Angeles; Saigon; Ho Chi Minh City |
Geographic subject (county) | Yuma; Los Angeles |
Geographic subject (state) | Arizona; California |
Geographic subject (country) | USA; Vietnam |
Coverage date | 1947; 1966; 1967; 1968 |
Publisher (of the original version) | http://anotherwarmemorial.com/stanley-kennedy/ |
Type |
images video |
Format | 1 image; 3 video files (00:13:24); 3 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 | kennedystanley |
Description
Profile of | Stanley Kennedy |
Title | Looking Back |
Format | 1 transcript, 1p. |
Filename | kennedystanley-vid3_tr3.pdf |
Full text | Looking Back When you have passion, fighting for a revolutionary cause, that’s what won the war. Do you agree? 100%. As the everyday soldier, they didn’t try to understand why they were fighting. They just knew that it wasn’t right to be one country and to divide it in half. That was their mindset. It was nothing about politics. They didn’t care what the leadership was about. All they knew was, “I got aunts and uncles up in Hanoi and I’m in Saigon, and we’re enemies!” Those people didn’t like that scenario. So they said, “France, we kicked your butt. America we kicked your butt. Who’s next? We don’t care if there are 50 or 100 of us dying to one of you. We aren’t gonna stop.” I understood the political pressure on the enemy. The Viet Cong. He could literally be your friend in the daytime. Him and his children. I was just one of the few that understood that. You don’t think your fellow soldiers understood that? I don’t. They couldn’t wait to kill, kill, kill. They wanted to do it. I was a little unique in that it wasn’t about the number of kills I could get; it was only about one life I wanted saved, and that was mine. I put all of my energy in that. I’m only politically involved now with the Vietnam era because I look back on it now and, in my opinion, it was a waste of American dollars and lives. For 20 plus years, the French and America tried to prevent the merging of North and South Vietnam, and in 1975, that happened. I look back on it and view my fellow soldiers that helping the cemetery grow beautiful by being buried in it because I could have been doing the same thing. And, in my opinion, for nothing. By the time I was discharged a year later, I was so off into substance abuse, all I could think about was just staying high. That’s all I could think about. Two weeks after I was home, I was so spaced, so loaded off of different types of substances that I literally ran into the rear end of a parked semi. A diesel. I totaled the car and did extensive damage to the diesel. It was all because I was a psychological mess. I was very emotional. I had survived 365 days of combat. The only reason I didn’t get decapitated was because I laid down to go to sleep on the seat while I was driving. So when I went up under the rear end of the diesel, I was… You went underneath it? Yes. I broke the steering wheel with my stomach, and it damaged my pancreas tremendously. I was in intensive care for 3 days. It was almost an attitude like, “What’s the use? Who cares? Life’s gonna do to me what it wants anyway, so I’m just gonna waste it and get wasted.” That kind of made me wake up and smell the coffee that I think I’d rather live than die. I had already been through that. By the time I got out of the hospital 10 days later, I survived as you see, and then I started trying to make my life make sense. Within a couple years, I decided to take the spiritual approach. That’s what helped me. I started dealing with a god that I believed in to turn my whole approach on life around because if I didn’t there’s no way I would be giving this interview. |
Archival file | Volume6/kennedystanley-vid3_tr3.pdf |