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TI: So I'm curious, here you are a draftee, not here very long. How did you get your authority? How did people, why did people listen to you?

RD: Three stripes on the arm. And because I knew the answers to their questions. I had our personnel... each of the component units in this group sent one of its GIs, usually a corporal, to handle their work in the regimental personnel center. I was the director; I was in charge of S-1 of personnel. There was a national guard sergeant who came in there who didn't know anything, had no particular competence. But I told him what to do when the inspector general inspection came, I was in charge, and we passed. In other words, I did the job. I was even decorated, not for valor, but for administrative excellence. I was good at it. And yes, some of those guys who had been there for a while resented me at first, but when they had a problem, I was the one who could solve it; I knew how to solve it. And the colonel eventually came to rely on me, and it almost got me into... not into trouble, but it eventually almost put my plans in jeopardy. As I was just about ready to wind up my career over there because my time was up, Dien Bien Phu fell.

TI: I'm sorry?

RD: Dien Bien Phu fell. Dien Bien Phu, the Vietnamese fortress. And there was a lot of scurrying around. The colonel called me in one day, "It says here you can read French. Can you really read French?" I said yes. He handed me something he had ready for me. He couldn't read French. "Well, we need you." And immediately, he says, "You have to apply for top secret clearance before I can even talk to you." So I filled out this incredible questionnaire and took it down to army intelligence in Seoul. And they took one look at it, stamped it, and says, "It's approved." I said, "How can you do that?" He said, "Well, this is a theater approval. It would take" -- as I'd been told before -- "it would take two years for one of these things to clear, and we need you right away." So I had top secret clearance; in fact, I was even cleared for atomic. Why? Well, I got back, and he handed me some material, and I discovered what was happening. We were being prepared to go to Vietnam. If a certain radio signal had been received, coded signal, certain selected personnel were supposed to go to the airport in Seoul, be flown to Clark Field in the Philippines, and then be flown into Haiphong, which was still in French hands. And I'd gone over with an officer to a meeting in Tokyo where French soldiers and civilians briefed us on what to expect. It was planned down to a pretty fine detail. We knew the building we'd be in in Haiphong, and it was a building, modern building, glass windows, second floor. And it happened that there were four corner offices and one big central office where I had put the colonel and myself, because I was his leading sergeant there, and assigned S-1, S-2, S-3, S-4. The colonel looked at this and, "Sergeant," he says, "you've got it wrong. I get the windows." And I said, "Colonel, I have this pamphlet here, it's in French, but let me read you what it says." Among other things, it described the Viet Cong habit of throwing satchel charges through windows. He said, "Maybe that's a good idea after all." [Laughs] I mean, we'd have guards, but... and the unit's first job was to improve the MSR, the Major Supply Route, between Haiphong and Hanoi, for the heaviest possible tanks that the U.S. Army had. So this was... where this plan came from, God only knows. Nothing in the published literature talks about it. My notion is that it was dreamed up by somebody in Tokyo, but I don't know. But we sat on it for a while and eventually a message came through, coded, which said, "This operation will not take place." And we know that there were debates in Washington. By the way, the other thing that I had to do -- and this was what upset me -- I had drafted an order extending my own service in the military indefinitely, at the convenience of the government.

TI: I'm sorry, you agreed to this, or you drafted this?

RD: I drafted this. It wasn't an option; they could do that to you at the convenience of the government.

TI: Because you were viewed as a necessary resource?

RD: That's right, "military necessity." [Laughs] Have you ever heard that phrase before? I don't think anybody used those particular words, but that's what it was. I would have had no choice. But that didn't happen and I got out in time.

TI: But it sounds like this was pretty, for a young man, pretty exciting, interesting situation to be in? If that order had come differently, would you have done so because you would want to, or you'd still be reluctant?

RD: I didn't want to do anything that would extend my service in the military.

TI: Even though this could have been pretty interesting, exciting type of work into intelligence?

RD: No. I would still be doing the same kinds of clerical work, just in a different situation. And I wouldn't be doing just S-1 work. And the reason is that I had French.

TI: So in some ways, you just dodged this bullet.

RD: Yes. It didn't come up.

TI: Now with your term ending, did they try to encourage you to stay?

RD: No, they knew better than that. And there was no particular reason for it. In fact, I had a choice. I could have gone home on what they called a banana boat, which would have meant I would have left a little early and gone back not the way I came, which was across the Pacific, but down through the Suez Canal, etcetera, and I didn't want any part of that. But some people thought it was, get out of duty. But I just wanted to get home and get out of the army. I got out and came into Seattle, spent a few hours at Fort Lewis, got on a train, went back to Fort Sam Houston -- I mean Fort Bliss, where I was discharged, and then went back to Houston, finished my college degree. Now I had, by the way, GI Bill money. And went on to UCLA.

TI: Okay, so you graduated university, you said, in 1957?

RD: June 1957. September '57 I started my PhD. I got a master's degree in January of '59. In March of '59 I passed my doctoral exams, my PhD exams, and then spent the rest of 1959 -- well, not the rest. I had to finish as a teaching assistant, but from March on I was doing nothing but dissertation work. And then for the full year after that, I researched and wrote my dissertation, which I finished and handed in. But as I think I've already said...

TI: Right, your advisor was overseas.

RD: Yes. But I finished in July 1960.

TI: But your PhD was conferred to you in 1961?

RD: Right.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2013 Densho. All Rights Reserved.