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BN: What was your experience in Vietnam?

NN: When I got to my assignment, which was in Quang Tri Province, it was Dong Ha, it was like they had Vietnam broken into different areas, and it was called (Northern) I Corps, that was a little bit like north. And then it was like a Headquarters Company combat base, and my first impression was, kind of reminded me of being in a real-life Western, where everybody was walking around packing guns. And I liked it in the sense where all the military décor was forgotten, Because, I mean, cats had your fatigues on, you just dressed, no inspection kind of stuff. A lot of the Blacks, the brothers, they're having naturals, bushes, so it's like back home a little bit. And so it was more lax. You know, in a way, growing up in the community, that everybody knows each other, so someone can't go there and talk, talk something they can't back up. And it's kind of like that in Vietnam where you just have to carry your weight, and be right. So I'm okay with that.

Like I was assigned to the company office, and they wanted me to do this thing they called the Unit Diary, and it was like this new implementation of a system that every day you're supposed to put down statistics about how many people were injured, how many people were killed in action, how many of the enemy were killed, people that went on leave, everything, right? So they wanted me to get trained to do that stuff because it was brand new, right? So I went to this schooling thing for about a week, and they showed, you know how you get these plates and you got, whatever that they were showing. But once again, my lack of interest in school, and I went back, and so I'm in charge of the Unit Diary, and no one could supervise me because no one knows how to do it, and neither do I. [Laughs] So that's that, right? And it was like morale was, no one really cares. I mean, in a certain way, if you're on the push, you care, but if you're back there in the rear, "Why the fuck are we doing this shit?" So usually during the day, I would know people like in the motor pool or a supply, or different, there were sniper platoons over there. So I would just do whatever I felt like during the day, and then if there was some kind of caravan going to drop off supplies or doing whatever a caravan does, we'd jump in these trucks with cattle guards, and then we'd be packed in there and we'd just go down on down Highway Vietnam. So I go on caravans and just do whatever, so I just, that was basically what I was doing.

There was... the camaraderie was, it was okay. The camaraderie was okay, that one difference was for us that went to Vietnam, that we didn't go as a unit, we went individually. So when I went there, I mean, I'm the new guy, right? And fortunately, I'm not in the bush, so they don't make me walk the point. But then you're the new guy and you just kind of make your way around. You're actually, at first, you're a cherry, called a cherry. And then probably up until a new cherry comes and takes your place, and then you're... so when somebody leaves, that you break out a bottle and we celebrate them getting out of here. And it was like the morale was, it was actually the pits, where you're not, there's no patriotism of what you're doing, you're just doing, you're just there to get out of there in one piece.

BN: I was going to ask, you didn't have any real gung ho, super patriot types?

NN: I met one cat, and he was like, I think he was a Samoan from Hawaii. But he was out in the bush and then... I forgot his name. But I remember him because such an impact that he had, and it was this one night that they came back from the patrol, and he came into this hooch that we had that we all used to go there to drink beer and drink hard shit and whatnot, right? So he comes in, and I want to say his name was Tau or something, right? But he gravitated toward me because I'm Asian. So I think he was telling me all this stuff that, I mean, I really didn't want to know about it. I think this was his third tier there, third tour there. And he was like a machine gunner, and like the machines that you put on a tripod, but this is a big dude, he just carried it around, really Rambo kind of shit. He was telling me about all the people he killed. So he was kind of gone, and then I think that night, the place was pretty packed. The Blacks were partying and they'd do shit like, "Okay, everybody, we're give a toast to Black Power." Picked up a glass to drink, and Tau would stand up and, "Fuck all that. Everybody stand up and give a toast to Pineapple Power." And this dude was kind of menacing, so everybody was doing this "Pineapple Power" shit. And then I remember him asking me that, you know, the guy sitting across from us, this white guy, but I knew him, and he says, "You know what? Do you want to see me poke his eyes?" I said, "What? That's cool." "Okay." I said, oh, okay, we started about something else. But that night, when I left the club, I heard the next morning that they had to medevac like three guys out of a helicopter. Because three guys tried to jump on Tau. And Tau's like, "You know what?" I think he was telling me he was trained in these martial arts, like he sent them all to the hospital. So I mean, you meet some characters, man.

Then in the sniper platoon, there was this one guy that... and I guess what they would do is they have these things they called "free fire zones." And that's an area that if anyone is inside that area, that zone, you could fire, you could kill 'em, because that's a free fire zone. So all the villagers hopefully know that, you know, step into a free fire zone, so he would go up there, up on a grassy knoll or something with binoculars where they have a spotter. And if they see any type of movement, they'd get their sniper gun, rifle, and they'd blow 'em away. And then that would count as like a kill, right? So this guy was wanting to set the record for the most kills. So he comes in, and he's arguing with the first sergeant, was a sergeant major that's in charge of keeping all the records in the office. And he says, "You only gave me credit for one kill." "And that's all you got is one kill." And he says, "No, but she was pregnant, so she'd get two, right?" "Get the fuck out of here," kind of thing. So, I mean, these are the kind of people that are coming back to quote/unquote civilization, inside the sniper hooch, they would have skulls to put candles in, and sockets and all that kind of stuff.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.