Saving our Vietnam War Stories

A couple of days ago I was at a book signing and one of the gentlemen that was there who was also a Vietnam veteran asked me why did I write my books. I asked him what he had done in Vietnam, and he had told me that he’d been an infantryman up in I Corp back in the 1966 to 1967 time frame. He had been with one of the divisions up there and had spent most of his time out in the field.

We were talking and I asked, “did you have any unusual experiences?”  He told me that he had had the “privilege” of being the point man for his platoon.

As we were talking he started relating to me some of his experiences, some of the crazy things that happened  out there, some of the heroic things that he and his platoon had done, some of the funny things that had happened during his time in Vietnam.

I said, “ well if you don’t write your stories down who’s ever going to know what you did? You may not think of what you accomplished as a great feat of arms, but what you did was what every soldier does. And you need to explain that to people that your part of the war contributed to the bigger part of the war effort.”

 Sometimes we forget that. We think that we have to have something that we did that was heroic or unique to write about.

I asked him what he had told his kids about his time in Vietnam, and he said that like most guys he had told his sons some of the war stories that had happened to him over there. I  asked if he had any grandkids;

“Yes I have a couple of grandkids.”

 How were they going to know what their grandpa did during the war? Sometimes they might ask mom or dad about that. Their parents might not be able to give them a good answer; they might not remember the stories exactly as you told them.

So I told him you need to just sit down and write these stories down for them. You might find that they are really interested in what you did, someday in a history class they may be challenged by a teacher to find out what their relative did in Vietnam, and your stories would be very interesting and beneficial for them to know. Who knows, maybe your great grandchildren would like to know what you did in Vietnam.

While we were talking I told him about doing historical research on the Civil War and my great-great grandfather’s participation in the war. The family story told how my distant relative had died at the Battle of Gettysburg. When I was visiting there I looked to find Calvin S. Russell listed in the ‘Book of the Dead”, a listing of Union soldiers who had died in that battle. I couldn’t find him because the family story was wrong. It took me a number of years to find out that he had never been to Gettysburg and that the unit that he was involved with had spent all of their time fighting up and down the Mississippi River in the western theatre. In my case it ultimately ended up in writing a new book about his regiment, a regiment that had not been thoroughly documented after the Civil War.

So I encouraged him to write out his stories for his grandkids, something that mom and dad could pass on about his time in Vietnam.

He told me that he didn’t write very well, and I explained to him that the new technologies make that so much easier than in the past. I told him how, like I’m doing right now, I can put on a headphone with a microphone and talk into the computer and the computer will record what I’m saying In a written format. I explained to him this and that if nothing else he could write, or dictate, his wartime experiences for everyone to recall.

Also, today there are visual recording devices that will record his memories digitally.

I told him about what my cadets had done a number of years ago with the National Archives where we interviewed World War II and Korean War Veterans at the local nursing home and got their stories digitally recorded. We sent those stories on to the National Archives for posterity sake. Think about doing something like that for your kids or your grandkids.

Many of us have never told our stories from Vietnam. I know when I came home it was one of those things that we just didn’t talk about. For some of us, because of the national feelings about the war, we felt somewhat ashamed of what we had done over there. For some of us, there was anger, because we had been drafted and involuntarily sent there. But the reason you had for not talking about the war doesn’t mean that what you did doesn’t deserve some recognition. Regardless if we enlisted, or we were drafted, whether we have volunteered to go to Vietnam like I did, or we were sent there on orders by our country, we did our duty. And that’s something we should be proud of.

So, to all my brothers and sisters in arms, please take some time and record your memories of Vietnam, the good and the bad. I think it’s good for our posterity to see both sides of what happened over there. Talk about your time in the field, or your time in the base camp if you were a support person, talk about some of the funny things that you did as well as the rough times; the experience can be very cathartic.

Before I close for the week I’ll relate one more family story. I talk a little bit about it in one of my books, “The Province Senior Intelligence Advisor, Kien Song Province, 1970-1971”.

My grandfather was a World War I veteran. His military career started in the National Guard in Iowa, and his unit was called up to active duty to go to the Mexican border and repel Pancho Villa just before we were getting involved in World War I. Since his unit was already on active duty when World War I started he was sent home to Des Moines, Iowa for a 30 day leave, and then his unit deployed to World War I in France.

His unit was one of the first to arrive in France, he was an artilleryman and fought in all of the major U.S. engagements over there. When he came home from World War I he fell into an alcohol daze for a number of years. I think he was afraid to talk about World War I for fear that it would push him back into alcoholism. He was one of those strong men who quit drinking on his own without AA or any of the current methods of beating alcoholism.

I came home from Vietnam on a 30 day home leave between assignments over there and I went out to Des Moines Iowa to visit him. When I came home all he could talk about with me was his experiences in World War I. We sat there for two days, and he pulled out maps and books, and he refought the war against Pancho Villa and then the war in France. He told me stories that happened during the war.  I found out that he had three Purple Hearts, and other military awards for bravery; he had been gassed three times over there. His unit had been broken up on arrival in France to train other units arriving in country. Only 11 of them came home together of the original 900. He had been offered and refused a battlefield commission. He was proud of his service.

I asked him, “grandpa why didn’t you tell these stories to my dad and your son and your son-in-law; they were all World War II veterans?”

He told me. “Pete your dad was in the Navy, my son was in the Navy, and my son-in-law was in the Army Air Corps and never left the United States. What did they know about being a ground combat soldier? What did they know about living in the mud, in the heat, in the constant fear of being killed by an enemy artillery barrage? You are a combatant you’ve been under fire you understand what it’s like to be a real soldier and that’s why I’m telling you my stories.”

To this day my biggest regret about those two days is the fact that we didn’t have a tape recorder. I didn’t have the ability in those days to put this down on film or tape. I listened to his stories, but I couldn’t document what he and his unit did in World War I. I can only relate what I can remember. But I have been able to write my memories of those two days down and pass them on to my  children, and my grandchildren, and hopefully we will be able to keep those memories alive for many generations to come.

Just think about your posterity and write or record your stories. You just need to tell them what you did, what we did, and how we did it. They need to understand what our war was about, not just what they read in books or see on TV or the movies. They need to know what our real experiences were in Vietnam.

To this day I have only seen one movie that accurately portrays our experiences in Vietnam. So much of what we see from Hollywood about Vietnam is totally inaccurate. In many cases these movies were made to substantiate the antiwar aspects of society without really telling what the common soldier did in Vietnam. When I look back on the movies that came out of World War II and the Korean War they portrayed soldiers in a heroic fashion. That’s not been the case of what Hollywood has said about our war. We weren’t all drug addicts or Alcoholics or baby killers or murderers, and village burners, destroying the countryside like they portray us. Those aren’t the stories that are children need to know; they need to know what we really did. The only way they’re ever going to know that is if you tell them.

As Paul Harvey used to say, “Now for the rest of the story.”

So Brothers and Sisters write them down, put them on an audio recording, put them on film, but please save your stories for posterity. As a former educator, get your kids to do the interviews and get them involved. You have a lot to teach them!

Regards, “Hardcharger”

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Again please take a look at all of my books that I have listed. They can be purchased from Amazon.com with the click of a button directly from the website. Until next week, Have a good one.

The Advisor Series:

• “The Advisor, Kien Bing, South Vietnam, 1969-1970. A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B09L4X5NQ3)
• “The Province Senior Intelligence Advisor, Kien Song Province 1970-1971; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0BHL2XCX5)
• “The Hardchargers,” Vietnam 1972-1973; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0C7SPR1JY)
• “The Tuscarora Trail” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0D3QY2GM6)

Check out my website for other books that I’ve written or edited.

Website: ptaylorvietnamadvisor.com