Page 108 - Stand Down Vietnam

When I went over there, I felt like my country had
called me and I had a job to do. I done the job at the
best of my ability.

I always told everybody that we were winning when I
left in 1969. I think as a nation, we showed that we
were not going to be pushed around. I think we more or
less gave up and let the North Vietnamese take over. I

didn’t like that part of it because I figured we lost
all those lives.

I had sixty-nine guys, that went through the schools
with me and within two months only five of us was left;
all the rest of them had been killed. I was one of the
five that came back that wasn’t all shot up and
everything. When I went into the country, I weighed
240 pounds. When I came back from Vietnam, I weighed
132 pounds. I lost 108 pounds while in Vietnam. I was
just like a dead person walking around.

I still have problems with my stomach today, but I
learned to cope with it. I went out on patrol right up
to the time they had to medevac me out. I was
medivacked to the field hospital.

When I got out of the service, I wasn’t tired of
helping people. I still wanted to help people. That’s
why I got into the National Guard. We worked all kinds

of disasters; Barbados, Honduras, Dominican Republic,
Columbia. We built schools in the jungles, and I
enjoyed it. When we went to Honduras, they didn’t know
what sports was, before we got that school built, we
had those kids taught how to play football. We had
taken a football and a basketball with us. Before we
left the country, they were playing, we left the balls
for the kids.