As a lurp you you’re very quiet and that is because it’s your survival and you just soon as you land on the on the ground and you make contact you get out of there and like I said you just you whisper most of the time and you take one step at a time you don’t try not to step on any branches or anything because they make racket um and let’s say we set up for the night or something or and and uh when you hear all kinds of Racket around there I mean the birds and um water buffalo might be Beller or uh monkeys chatter and when they’re

chattered and everything making normal noise it’s usually it’s a sign everything’s okay but when everything gets quiet monkeys aren’t making any noise Birds aren’t making that’s when you get a little nervous and you actually de develop kind of of a six sense you know when there’s Vietnamese round you just know it something in the air maybe it’s because like birds or whatever you actually develop a six sense and and when you do when you know they’re around you’re constantly alert very much alert and but then you know when everything comes back

to normal you sit back and you kind of relax now I remember the first oh six weeks here in Vietnam it’s the most dangerous time the first six in the last six weeks of that year and uh you’re just so nervous and you’re just scared and you’re just a pup man you’re only 18 19 years old you know you should be out chasing women not chasing Vietnamese and so the first like I said first six weeks you and then after a while you get so tired of being nervous you could be nervous and by then you’ve kind of developed that sick sense you know when

they’re around you know when to relax and when to be on alert and uh you listen to your gut and uh it got me through got me through yeah when you guys get into firefights and these really you know intense events uh is it the same thing where where you kind of get used to that or is it always uh when you’re in a firefight the strange thing about a firefight during the time you’re in the firefight you’re really not that nervous you you got a job to do you do it the best you can it’s when it’s over all the shooting

stopped and your mind starts doing tricks with you are they circling around us uh it could have been that bullet could have been 3 in over and you then dead or at least shot in the arm or something uh it’s usually after the firefight is when you really comes down and and that’ll last for some several days but usually during the time of the firefight it’s just so much going on and you’re so focused you’re really not that nervous it’s kind of a kind of a strange phenomena and you’re working in such small teams these fourman teams are you

guys taking casual very often out there no not very often occasionally yes um like I said we our whole objective is be as quiet as we can not to get caught and just monitor what’s going on and then we call in uh we might call in air strikes uh which reminds me of one time um we have been monitoring this Trail for several we were down lower than the trail and the trail is Right alongside of a hill right and we were down in in a low area and there’s some rocks and trees and super tall elephant grass and elephant grass is I 6 7 ft

High we could see the trail pretty good but they couldn’t see us and uh well we’ seen these Vietnamese come down this Trail and of course we monitor the team leader he when the Vietnamese over here he’ call an air strike over here and when they passed us over here they’d call him over there well we’ done this for several days and the Vietnamese started thinking over here and over somebody must be in the middle somewhere cuz they’re never calling air straight in the middle so so they turned around came down and

they come right down towards the middle and there was oh man there must have been 30 of them head in right direction for us oh Jesus this is not good and there was only I think four of us at the time and uh the guy behind me he started snoring he went to sleep and he behind a rock he started snoring shut up he would just snore up oh my God and these be me to come down there and uh they figure oh these these guys are dead asleep we’re going to catch them and they’re they like the idea of catching a alert they didn’t want to kill us so

much they wanted to catch take us back to Hanoi cuz we we were worth $1,500 a piece on our head and at that time 1,500 bucks could buy you a pretty nice little tractor for the whole family so that was their objective is catch one one of us or more take us back to Hanoi and uh this guy he was just snoring up a storm shut up shut up and uh finally all hell broke loose and we fired and they fired and oh man it was a mess and uh but we got out of there they didn’t uh I think we killed I don’t remember how many we

killed killed but anyway um so we after the firefight uh we backed off and what was left of them they went down the trail and that was the end of that that could have been really bad that guy snoring yeah if he hadn’t been snoring he probably never never would he came down there but somebody had heard that oh yeah that could have been bad but we got out of that all right one of the guys got wounded but that was it when is it difficult to to fire at the enemy or are you so well trained that you’re just kind of you going into

a certain mode and you’re just you do your job generally I had when I first got over there had an M16 which is a pretty good sight rifle and then after you been there little time you got an AR-15 if you wanted it and which fires the same round exactly as a M16 only it’s shorter has a sliding stock which is really nice because you can hold like this move the brush out of the way like that and generally the Vietnamese uh when you get in contact they’re usually not more than maybe 7,500 ft away so you don’t have to aim

like this unless you’re in [Music] a Ambush or something like that usually because you got it right here you can just shoot in that direction and you’re going to hit them yeah but like if it’s an ambush and of course that’s a different story but uh we did that a few times but uh yeah and then that’s like the AR-15 was such a good rifle because M16 it was so long and that sucker got Heavy after a while holding like this all the time the AR15 kind of back over like this you scrunch it down that was a good rifle well speaking of your equipment

what did you guys or you see pictures of long range Patrol guys and you see like Tiger Camo and stuff like what how is your equipment different than like an average grunt um well our equipment was you we carry usually less weight than the average grunt they would oh man those guys would be carrying close to 100 lb in their pack well we usually went out four six days so we just have enough food for four to six days and uh so our packs weren’t near as heavy but we still had grenades around here in ammo and everything uh our our

uh we probably carried those 60 65 lbs I suppose and average grunt was pretty close to 100 lb I’m thinking and oh man that’s a lot of weight going up them down up and down those mountains like I was in PLU that was Central Highlands and there was some pretty tall mountains up there yeah um yeah so like I said our weight wasn’t near as bad as the as a grunts but uh and our our we had special rations called lurp rations and uh what they were they were in little bags in dehydrated food it might be spaghetti or chili or

anything and all you had to do is pour in hot water and mix it around and it was a lot better than sea rations all the sea rations were hor and now after saying that if you mix the sea rations with the lurp rations that wasn’t too bad they just pling sea rations God they had sea rations I remember some of stuff was from World War II and we’re talking about you know the late 40s and this in Vietnam it was 68 so we’re talking about quite a few years and some of that stuff was pretty old and usually but very seldom did we have

you see rations everything was lurp rations because we wanted to keep as light as possible so we could travel fast you know uh if it looked like we’re were going to get in contact we were supposed to back off now that’s the way it was the first 6 months that’s the way as reconnaissance you know you weren’t supposed to get in contact but after about 6 8 months I’ve been there they decided well we’re going to make them hun killer missions and then they like what we used to went out in fourman teams now we’re going out six-man teams with a guy with

a machine gun and we’re supposed to be out there looking for um the Vietnamese which I did not sign up for I signed up for reconnaissance spying not to go out there and hunter killer so I didn’t like like that part of it but the hunter killer not at all as a as a regular lurp what I signed up for reconnaissance that was that was pretty good you know I imagine those hun killer missions were much more intense cuz absolutely absolutely yeah they were a lot more intense they changed the objective on us okay you and you got six

men team versus 30 or 40 Vietnamese that’s not very good odds oh you guys can get in and get out right and but then then they gradually went just back to re reconnaissance after that you know did did any of those operations kind of go sideways where you did engage in a large force and all of a sudden went uhoh we’re in a bad we’re in a tight spot or yeah um we got in one time there was four of us and about 30 of them and uh it was just starting to get dark if I remember rightly and well they had a firefight and everything it starting to

get dark to the point they couldn’t see us we were in the jungle and we kept as quiet as we possibly could and uh we had Claymores you know what Claymores are we had them out and uh in the line you usually you put a claymore out go out this way go out that but as alur you zigzag that wire so if a Vietnamese finds that Claymore he’ll try to follow it in and know exactly where you’re at but if it zigzags like this he don’t know where you’re at and what we decided to do was uh like I said there was like about 30

of them and there they had flashlights looking for us so what we did the uh team leader said hey what we’re going to do I’m going to count to three I’m going to blow all these Claymores it’s going to scare the crap out of everybody them and us and it makes a lot of Racket we’re flatten on the ground these guys are still standing up they got flashlights so soon as after get get done blowing we’re going to rise and we’re heading right through them they’re everybody’s going to be disillusion they don’t know nothing so

soon as I blow that going to get up the Run everybody grab the guy in front of you his his uh pack and follow us out of there so we went right through them and they didn’t know what where in the hell we went and we just passed right through them and we got out of there but that was that could have been a little hairy but uh yeah but that’s the kind of stuff you learn when you’re in lurs because you got you got to think a little bit differently than uh a regular grunt yeah so you save my butt so well doing stuff

like that did you ever get hit when you were over there or don’t I never got shot or or uh wounded well I did get wounded one time oh how was uh in my Barracks I we came back after our 4-day mission and I was in the barracks and somebody hollered dokey Glenn Campbell’s on I love Glenn Campbell he’s on the TV well there little Hooch for TV was was outside and it’s pitch black I come running out of there and there’s this wall Locker laying on the ground and I hit that scratched my leg from there to there and I was bleeding like a sun gun

and I just took my t-shirt off I had to watch Glen Campbell had nice women there a whole bunch so I took my t-shirt off wrapped around and got the blood stop went over watch that’s the only wound I had in Vietnam so I come out very very good for for being infantry I I I was lucky yeah that’s the way to get wounded I guess yeah yeah so I just I’m no wall Locker it’s how only wound I had and well it hurt too but that’s that’s pretty mild pretty mild well uh when you came back to the United States cuz you talk about how

alert how you had kind of a sick sense in the jungle what’s that transition like com back and trying to be a normal person again well you you’re pretty nervous when you first get back give you example I remember I was uh got back and uh I was taking a shower one time and somebody threw I had the window open somebody threw some rocks up on a tin roof and I heard that and I dove for the floor because it sounds just like uh somebody firing at you but that gives you an idea what kind of scared the crap out [Music] um when I got back out of

Vietnam I went down Midvale it’s where I graduated high school and they were pretty good there there I I bet I was offered five or six jobs and they treated me real well there now here in Spokane is not not the case um give you an example I went over to see one of my cousins and they asked as me about Vietnam I told him this and that oh Eric that that really didn’t happen you condescending son of a it did happen and uh at the end of our conversation he said uh Eric now that you’re out of the army and everything what what are you going to do

with your life says well the reason why I went in the Army in the first place was so I get the GI Bill fly airplanes and fly helicopters that’s what I want to do focus on flying airplanes and flying helicopters so I can get enough money to buy a ranch but I got now and that was the whole thing and my cousin looked at me he says flying airplanes helicopters no Eric you you wouldn’t mean make a steart where in God’s name did that come from you know I didn’t want to go to Vietnam I want to go to Hawaii I just want to go in the army

to to get a GI Bill to go to school I wasn’t he’s a lawyer I wasn’t you know my father wasn’t super wealthy to send me to college get Flight Training I I want I had to get get some money to go Flight Training so what I’m saying here in Spokan I was treated pretty crappy uh like oh you you low life scum sucking as if I had some great it was my fault that I would send to Vietnam the funny thing is I did I did get my draft notice and my draft notice they sent me a draft notice when I’ve been in Vietnam for 7 months yeah oh my

God yeah and they sent me my draft when I’ve been in VI long for 7 months I I wish I would have kept that thing but I didn’t um but um yeah it seemed like the more educated the people were the more or they came down on you um but like I said when I went back to Midvale where I had been working for my boarding room when I was going to high school oh I was treated pretty well uh and they offered me jobs and yeah pat pat on the back well we’re glad you’re home we’re glad you made it back but here and Spokan I was treated like a low life

[Music] were you uh suffering from any form of PTSD I know you mentioned the shower incident but kind of longterm type well for quite a while after I got out I used to have bad dreams um and uh I remember one dream that I had that I reup to go in the military oh my God and and as a dream progresses you stupid ESO why did you re up what is the matter with you finally I woke up and I was sweating and I was so happy that that was just a bad dream that’s just oh God but uh I I wouldn’t other than having super bad dreams I wouldn’t say I had too much

uh yeah like guys I pretty fortunate to compare to a lot of those guys that were in infantry yeah well when you reflect on the Vietnam War now and kind of what happened how you guys were treated uh what do you think of that that whole thing you know I really don’t think much about it I have a lot of friends that they’ll keep in contact with me that that were in Vietnam we were innam together Steve for example uh and then I got another friend named Steve over there in Pennsylvania and we exchange Christmas cards all the time

but uh and he he talks about Viet I just kind of I just want it to go to bed I put it to bed once and for all and uh but you know I’ll talk about it but uh yeah well I’m glad like I said I’m one of the luckier ones to get out of there and that was in infantry without other than my scratch with a wall locker and know uh yeah it could have been a lot worse a lot worse