Reflections on His Tour of Duty
But no, over there the thing is you’re always thinking about coming home, but the thing is they send young men to war because…they don’t think of the consequences…they don’t think about fear…they don’t think that they are going to be the ones to get killed because pretty much…we’re invincible. If you’re nineteen years old you’re not thinking – bullets are flying over my head – I never thought one was going to hit me. I could hear them going by “shew shew shew” but I had special forces guys guarding me while I was loading and unloading the airplanes, and I could hear the bullets going over my head or by my head or whatever and I just… for some reason never thought that I’d get killed.
But we’re supporting those guys that are fighting. There are so many of us in the background and its a typical day for the ones… like my typical day was… get up in the morning – the military always has things for you to do to keep you regimented. Make sure that you know that somebody is there that can tell you what to do or give you orders that you have to follow on… keep you brainwashed so-to-speak – you get up in the morning and its okay… look on a roster and its your turn to rake the sand, or do KP or peel the potatoes, or your turn to whatever, we always had chores, we always had regimentation.
And whenever I saw bodies that got sent home, I actually wanted to go out and kill a gook. Because I know a gook killed that person.
It was well known, and we lived with the idea that, that all the bases over there that in the daytime… we’d be working with the Vietcong. Calling us number one GI – “you number one GI!” – as long as they get what they want you’re number one. If they don’t get what they want you’re number ten, and if they really don’t like you you’re number “ten thou” GI, “you number thou GI.”
We talked before and you can get court martialed for getting sun burned–you belong to the U.S government and whatever the U.S government wants you to do that’s what you have to do. As far as being black and saying they never called me nigger this and that; that has nothing to do with it. It has to do with being in the United States, being part of the United States military machine and taking care of that. Matter of fact I think everybody should serve two years in the military just like they do over in Israel because I think everybody needs to have that… be able to later on in life be able to say – you know what “I served my country, I did my part, I pulled my little two years” – and I feel that nobody could ever say that I don’t deserve whatever it is here… I don’t deserve my retirement, I don’t deserve any kind of medical treatment, I don’t deserve my house. Nobody can tell me that just because I didn’t serve my country that I – you know – don’t deserve something. So I think everyone should pay their dues and spend a year or two in some sort of service, and I think the President was talking about something like that.