Jillian Gardner 10:00am history

Interview with a Vietnam Vet I chose to interview my grandfather Eric Chandler, a 78 year old Vietnam veteran. I am lucky that he allowed me to interview him. It is important to know that he is a grumpy old man that does not like talking about the war. Not to mention the intensifying cancer that eats his insides. I would be grumpy and angry as well. I arrived at my grandmothers house at about five oclock and walked into a house fill ed with the delicious aroma of dinner. There was Eric, sitting in front of the television watching the news, as usual. Are you ready? I asked as I sat down and set up my lap top. Just do your best to remember things. I know it was a long time ago. Okay lets start. It was a long time ago, so. Eric said kind of trailing off. I noticed that he would often trail off ending sentences incompletely in a way that made you feel like he was still going to speak. His voice was very soft and gentle, sometimes you could hardly hear what he said, which is in sharp contrast to my grandmother who could be heard as far as a lions roar. Okay great! Lets just jump into it then, I took a breath and continued. So, when and why did you enlist? Mm I enlisted in 1959, so I was 23 years old he looked around in the air as if he was gathering the answer from it. At the time there was a draft so it was better to have a choice than to be drafted. What did you feel when you enlisted? Was there any pride or patriotism, or was it just like well everyone is being drafted so I had might as well pick. Sure there was the draft but it was something genuinely wanted, So tell me, why the air force? I hoped that I would get some grand passionate answer about flying. Unfortunately he is a man of few words. I wanted to fly, he said with a face that said duh. His stare made discouraged any sort of desire I had to press him for a better answer.

Okay so what sort of goals did you have at the time? For example were you trying to get through school? Was the military a way for you to achieve any goals? No, I had just got out of college. I studied education. Ya know I dont know if there was a G.I. bill at the time. I didnt get any help; probably because I didnt ask for it. Okay well where were you living when you enlisted? I asked typing away on my laptop trying to keep pace with the talking. At the time I went into the air force I just got out of college and was living in Columbus Ohio. Oh I didnt know you lived in Ohio. How did you like it there? I have never been to the state. I wondered how similar it was to Utah. Eric raised his eyebrows and shrugged saying Well its the United States, I could eat the food, drink the water, and speak the language. I chuckled. Goodness, this was going to be a tedious interview with these short answers. I wondered if he was even taking me seriously. Alright so where did you train? How was the boot camp experience? I asked hoping that he would give me some sort of emotional description. Unfortunately all he said was, I went in as an officer so I didnt go to boot camp. Instead of prying I just went onto my next questions which were about the war. During the Vietnam war where exactly did you go? I got out a map of Vietnam I had printed out and a sharpie marker so that I could mark where he had gone. Oh, also when did you go? I was deployed April of 63. Stayed in Da Nang for the majority of my service but also stayed in Saigon. The country was divided at the time. I flew missions up to the border which was the 17th parallel. Oh 63, that was the very beginning of the war. I looked up some casualty statistics on the government website and it said there were only 122 casualties that year. The war did nt really heat up until 65-71. The peak was 16,899 casualties in 68. How many in total? For the whole war there were a total of 58,213 casualties. God what a waste, I thought to myself. Eric simply shook his head in agreement.
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So, how did you feel when you arrived? What was Vietnam like? Tell me about the country, like its climate and such. Well thats almost impossible to say. The climate varied during the time of the year. It varied so widely across the country too. I mean it ranged from desert to raining monsoon. As for how I felt I dont know ya just do it. That was the assignment. He kept on shrugging casually. I realized that Eric truly was a soldier. He simply did what he was told and if he had any complaints he kept them to himself. Eric, what exactly was your job? I was a forward air controller. Is all he said. Prodding him for more I asked What does that mean though? I would fly an airplane out and mark targets for bombers. Just search and destroy. Find physical structures. You know what you do in war dont ya. You kill people and break things! He raised his voice slightly for the last sentence. So were these solo flights? Or did you have anyone with you? Yeah there was a Vietnamese guy in the back of the plane, as an observer. But were there any other planes with you to protect you or was your plane armed? What was your protection? It started out un-armed but they (the planes) were later supplied with rockets to mark targets. We didnt just blow people up with em. For protection I used to just sit on my flak jacket. So, did you ever see combat or- He cut me off. It was all combat! I mean its war. All the missions were combat support missions. Sorry I just am trying to get a clearer picture. Um do you remember how many missions you flew? I know it was a long time ago. 290. he said abruptly I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. I didnt think h e liked talking about this. Were there many casualties in your unit? Well there were 20 of us and out of the 20 there were 14 that were shot, or had airplane malfunctions and such; so the incident rate was 70%.
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Did you receive any medals? Air medal and ten oak leaf clusters, for flying 290 missions Did you do anything special or- I was going to say or what are the requirements but again I was cut off. For flying 290 air missions! He crooned. Okay What were your highest concerns or stressors for yourself during the war? You know besides dying. Getting captured was by far my largest concern. When did your service end and how did it feel? Bout March or April in 1967. I left Vietnam in 64. I was happy to be out of there. Its nice when people stop shooting at you. What did you do a couple weeks after? I chuckled from his last response. Just came home and got ready for my next assignment. Oh, there wasnt any celebrating or anything? No. Did you join the veterans organization? No. Why not? Eh I just didnt. I hated these short answers he kept on giving me. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. What was your career after the war? After I left Vietnam I became an instructor pilot for the air force. After the air force I flew commercially for western airline. In 97 after going back to school I taught at the Salt Lake community college. Okay so now I am going to ask you some questions about life at war. Did you stay in touch with family? Was there a girl you were writing?
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I was married at the time and had a daughter. Oh wow. How young were you when you got married? Uh It took him a moment to recall. 21 What was the food like? When I went to Japan the food was the most exciting. We went to the officers club for breakfast and dinner in Da Nang. As for lunch, I was flying north to the border so I would eat where ever I would end up. I know that in some wars there were low supplies? Did you ever have any problems or were there many supplies? No we pretty much had what we needed. Give me a few, at least 2, memorable moments? They can be happy, sad, humorous, anything really. Leaving was the best one. On my days off I enjoyed swimming in the South China sea. How did people entertain themselves? Pranks? Drug use? Any prostitution? I honestly dont remember. It was 50 years ago Jillian. There werent any drugs in my unit. Not that I remember. What did you do on leave? Swam in the china sea. Did you do anything else? I dont know. There wasnt much to do really. Well sounds pretty boring Eric. Moving on, so who were your friends? I dont really remember anyone and I didnt stay in touch. No I want to talk about your opinion on certain things about the war. How did you feel about the enemy? You didnt know who the enemy was really. But on the other hand I had feeling that most people just wanted everyone to go away and leave them alone. Well you knew the guys that you went over with but the Vietnamese guys they were not friends. If I crash landed then

the first thing I would do is shoot the guy that was in the back of the plane. I would walk away and forget about it. He would be instant Viet Cong. What was soldier moral like? This was an unpopular war in the states was it unpopular among the troops? At first I wasnt unpopular like when I went. No it wasnt popular after a while, mostly because of the way it was handled. There was no clear policy on what we were doing? I dont know what the policy was but it wasnt to win. Look I dont know what the moral was. We were just doing our jobs and doing what we were trained to do. How did you feel when the war ended? Did you feel pride to have served in it? I was glad it was over. It was time to leave. Basically since we werent going to win it was time to leave. As for pride, I dont know. It was 50 years ago. I would have felt better about it if we had accomplished anything. What is your opinion of the Vietnam war? I mean it was a waste of human resources and men. There is no justifying it. Basically we let a bunch of guys in North Vietnam running around in flip flops fight the U.S. to a stand of. It was a waste of 50,000 men. When Defense Secretary Robert McNamara dies Id like to have a drink over his grave, and then Id like to filter it through my kidneys. I burst out in laughter over the how much this old man desired to pee on this grave. Hey so what do you think that we should have done? Well we should have bombed Hanoi to rubble, there were bridges all along the china border that we should have dropped. Then we should have mined Hai Phong harbor and the red river delta then we should have destroyed every large dam in the north, flooding the whole damn country. It would have brought them to their knees. Wow, I guess thats one way to do it. I laughed. The old man still had some passion left despite his age. That is my interview with a Vietnam air force veteran. It was not as exciting as I had hoped. Eric gave such short answers to my questions and showed so much resistance to giving me more information that I dared not press him for more. I thought it was so frustrating that he wouldnt really talk to me.

Erics Story in History How does this all fit into history? According to my text book Experience History Volume II which is my main source of information. It wasnt until August in 1964 that the U.S. focused on sending advisors to train South Vietnamese to fight the north. Eric was deployed in 1963, which is the very start of when we began to proactively fight the Vietcong. Eric flew his plane north of the 17th parallel to scout out areas to bomb. He would look for any physical structure like buildings which he would mark by firing rockets. The parallel was the dividing line between the north and the south, just like Korea. In the south Eric mostly stayed in Saigon and Da Nang; both cities would be major skirmishes in the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive however would not occur until 68, so luckily Eric was not around for that. In the above dialog I asked Eric how he felt about the enemy, to which he replied you didnt know who the enemy was. I imagine this was what fueled his fear of being captured. The text book said the North and South were divided on the 17th parallel; however the North, Vietcong, controlled 40% of the south. On top of that the south was apparently reluctant to fight the north at all which Eric could see even at the early stage s of the war. His quote I had feeling that most people just wanted everyone to go away and leave them alone, shows this. Our text book Experience History Volume II discusses a little bit of the policy the U.S. had on the war. Eric said that the policy was not clear and was not to win the war. The text book supports this in the section Rolling Thunder, on page 841. It explains that in 1965 Johnson received bad news from Bundy and McNamara. They are quoted saying, Both of us are now pretty well convinced that our present policy can lead only to a disastrous defeat. So the U.S. adopted a new policy based on the idea of escalation. This meant the U.S. would increase military pressure to the point where further resistance would cost more than the enemy was willing to pay. This sounded good in theory but obviously failed. In the same passage it discusses operation rolling thunder. This was the bombing campaign the U.S. led against Vietnam. Eric took part in this operation at its very beginning as a forward air controller. He and a loyal Vietnamese soldier would fly in a small plane over enemy territory marking anything to bomb. Eric mostly looked for physical structures. Other than the Vietnamese guy in the back Eric was alone against whatever was shooting at him. The only protection that Eric had was a flak jacket, which he sat on. A flak jacket is a similar to a bullet proof vest, but it only protects against low velocity objects. Thinking about Erics situation is rather scary. Eric often worried about being captured. Running missions against an enemy he could not see made him feel like he was just blowing in the wind. The Viet Cong would dress as
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civilians so Eric feared being captured. On mission when he needed supplies or food he would need to stop wherever was closest. The cities he stopped in were southern but because of the hiding tactics the Viet Cong used; he couldnt trust anyone. Below is a map of Vietnam, and I marked all the places that Eric spent the majority of his time in. I think that its cool to have this visual of where he went. The red marks on the map are the cities he went.

Map found on http://www.geoatlas.com/en/maps/countries-4/vietnam-1153