Memories of Killin’ and Pet Bears

Oral History of James L. Hurt, Captain, United States Army

By Elizabeth Arthur

It is said that we all grow from experience. Jim Hurt, 61, has had plenty of experience from which to grow. Today a cane supports him; he has to lean over slightly to reach it when he walks. There is a peaceful slowness to him and an ever present smile that is always followed by a contagious laugh. This man has grown from extraordinary circumstances and shocking experiences. To over simplify his role in Vietnam, he was a helicopter pilot. His job title may seem straightforward but his importance cannot be measured. His memories, as well as comments from him wife, Barbara Hurt, give you insight into the life of a heroic man, a man who fought for freedom and a family man. He is a hero by all accounts.

Jim Hurt in Vietnam

Ok, well, uh, I just had a regular childhood. We was, I don’t want to say we was poor, but we’d had to have [had] a raise to be considered poor white trash (laughter). Actually, it wasn’t bad. [I] had a good childhood. I was a rural country [boy]. We didn’t have electricity in the schools ‘till, uh, sixth grade; an’, we got electric lights and it was nice. We had oil heat instead of a coal stove. We was really in tall cotton. I went directly from that to, uh, PHS which was three stories with runnin’ flush toilets. I was lost for the first three or four months.

I joined the National Guard ‘cause I didn’t think there was anything worth fighting for, that I’d really want to risk my life for. After two years in the National Guard, I got drafted under [the name] John, which was the name that was on my birth certificate. Well, I called, uh, [the] Secretary of the Army and they said, “Well, go along with your draft notice, and we’ll get this squared away for you.”

Vietnam, the only thing I’d seen or heard ‘bout that was just like rest of the American public-- nothing but swamps and snakes, few tigers, and mud. I thought to myself, “I’m scared of heights, but I’m deathly scared of snakes,” so, uh, I went up and I enlisted for officer flight program. It was the best the army had. To get in the top three percent in the army qualified for it. But I was lucky. I qualified for it with the exception of the vision test. So, I paid an ol’ boy twenty-five dollars to take my vision test for me. I’m color blind and can’t see (colors). I didn’t pass my heart test either-- that cost me another twenty-five to get that. So to make a short story just a little shorter I qualified for one officer flight school. I went to school. I never brought a book home from high school. I had a couple years of college. I never brought a book home, but I had to study my tail off for that thing [flight school]. It was rough, but I did end up a pilot. I thought, “The schooling was a year long, then I enlisted for two years.” I thought, you know, they’d either get it squared away, that I was in the National Guard; or, they’d give me another flight physical before they sent me over seas--you know, an’ since I can’t pass it (the physical) I figured I’m discharged, you know. Well, my luck--never was real good on small things, but on large things it come out alright. Well, they got it squared away on my name after I was in Vietnam for about six months. They [The United States Government] said I could disregard my draft notice an’ could go on about my civilian life. Well that didn’t help out a whole bunch there. One [plan] down the drain. My back up plan [was that] I’d have to have a flight physical ‘for they sent me to Vietnam. You got one of them every year. Well, it just so happens that they waived flight physicals in the last year ‘cause they was need’n pilots.

I didn’t go to Vietnam to be a target. I didn’t go to Vietnam to be a hero. I didn’t go to Vietnam to be a martyr. I went to Vietnam ‘cause I got ordered. I got over there (Vietnam) an [I] was just like anybody else—big-eyed and thinkin’, “Well, hey, we can win the war if everybody fights.” I thought, “Hey, we’ll do what we can. We’ll make the world a safer place for these people to live. Let them be free.”

Vietnam was a common wealth of the British until after World War II. When Japan invaded it. The people that would fight against the Japanese was pushed back-- pushed out a the villages. France ended up with Vietnam after the war because France was devastated. They didn’t have anything to eat. Vietnam is the breadbasket of Asia; they’ve got more food that rots yearly than what most countries got. This is in the middle of the Cold War. We had trouble with China, and we was havin’ trouble with Russia. China wanted the food, they had more people than they got food. There is enough food in Vietnam alone just to feed all of China. Russians wanted it mainly ‘cause we was there, and ‘cause of the rubber plantations, the lumber which they don’t have, and the petroleum. French ravished the country for all the gold, and stuff that they could have. There’s a lot of gold over there (in Vietnam). We ended up fighting the people that had been fighting for independence for over forty years. Ho Chi Mien came to the American government and wanted help so he could have democracy; but since it was a colony of France, the Americans turned him down. Now, he (Ho Chi Mien) decided he was going to whoop ‘em any way. Now you say, “How can these people, beat down, don’t have anything, no jobs, where can they get the money to, you know, have a war?” Well, if you go to the Iron Triangle, (located in Southern Asia), you’ll find the largest poppy fields anywhere in the world. Russia likes opium. Chinese likes opium. ‘Cause it’s just a war of money, just like all wars. It’s not for principles. It’s not for, you know, a belief. It’s for the people that’s got the money.

This is thirty-five years since I’ve been there. The Central Highlands in Vietnam is under question. Now the Montagnards, (a native people of Vietnam), have not surrendered; they have not given up to the North. The North Vietnamese will not go in there; they’re still fightin’-- one whole generation that’s not seen nothing but war.

But the country itself was beautiful, blue skies, white beaches, blue ocean. But background and history—god, I didn’t know I was a history guy; but now I’m living history.

Vietnamese, their belief of life is totally different than ours. We worked with the second and twenty-sixth NVA divisions, (North Vietnamese Army). They was noted for their policy of not taking prisoners--they would not take prisoners. If you got wounded and they found you, you was causality, you was dead. It’s a pretty hard line to go with, but it’s like playin’ a game of cards. You play what cards you’re dealt. You play by the rules as long as able. When there are absolutely no rules on the table it makes it rough. Americans had rules. Vietnamese didn’t. We followed the rules of land warfare [and] the Geneva Convention. According to the laws of land warfare--if you have the means and if you have the people and the supplies to take prisoners--you will take prisoners. If you do not have the means or the protection, you will not take prisoners. Now, that’s the American law, the Geneva law. We fought a war with one hand tied behind us-- defensive war against guerrilla tactics. Once we located the enemy, the enemy wouldn’t attack unless they had us outnumbered or [had] favorable conditions.

But the enemy wasn’t another country or people infiltrating back to fight you. The enemy was the people that actually lived there. It was like Ho Chi Mien and his family. [Ho Chi Mien and his family lived in] Pleiku, [a major city]. He was fighting to get his home back. And the biggest part of the fighters that come down [to fight] were fighting on their home [land] for their parents, their wife, their children. Well, it’s pretty hard to have these people turning in people against themselves. The people we was fighting was their uncles, their brothers, their sisters. They blended in so good with the people the only way you knew the enemy was when the enemy was shootin’ at you. Shot ‘em back, and he was dead, (a Vietnamese) an’ everybody screamed. You should be able to be distinct in which way the markings are whether you’re a combatant or not, you know. If they was shooting at you, they was combatants. If they wasn’t shooting, they was noncombatant.

Lieutenant Kelly, Mi Lai, when he went in there (Mai Lai) there were two helicopter pilots they (the Vietnamese) had captured. They (the pilots) was staked out on the ground with bamboo drove into their arms and legs. Their bellies was cut in a cross. They’d poured a half a gallon of kerosene in their belly, lit ‘em on fire. It’s very painful, and it takes about a day and a half to die. All it does is cook your innards. You make sure you don’t cut the diaphragm to the lungs. The villagers, they went to what was a free fire zone--that means if it moved you killed it, and they’re saying there’s babies and children. At Mai Lai Lieutenant Kelly [he was] just a scapegoat for everybody. I don’t condone killing the babies or the children. Females, they was just another worker, another soldier. We got shot at several times by machine gun encampments with women and children stacked up around. I got to looking at that the first couple of times and I couldn’t return fire. Then I got to thinking “All those women and children there, while that ol’ boy is shooting at me he’s not holding a gun at them making people stay there.”

[I got shot down] three times the first day I flew. Yeah, we broke ground at about five [in the morning], and we went up on this big ol’ ridge; and we put water and took a hot meal out to ‘em (soldiers), and I got shot down. I guess it was probably about eight o’clock, and then the (US soldiers) picked me up, oh, about 9, 9:30 [A.M.] and I thought, “Well shit, you know, we all got out of that one. That was pretty good.” The helicopter crashed and burned; and you know, and I thought, “Well shit I’ll go home, (base); and we’ll write a report up on this,” you know. Well, we went to the base, landed right by this helicopter. “Ok, there you go,” (said an officer).

This other ol’ boy just acted like, “Ok,” you know.

We got back up there and had to go in the same god damn place. And God damn, we didn’t get half way through them damn trees. You come down in, ya know, and you gotta bring that back end [of the helicopter] around before it’ll go through there (through the trees). There ain’t no straight assed hole [to fly through], you know. You gotta come under the limbs like comin’ through here (imitates taking the helicopter through the stems and flowers of the bouquet of roses on the table). God dang! It’s pretty tight. Well shit, we was ten or twelve foot off the ground, the enemy shot us right through the doors. I’m sittin’ there, and I see this little bastard, (a Vietnamese soldier) standing out there with his RPG, (Rocket Propelled Grenade) you know. And I’m tellin’ the gunner, I says, “Three o’clock! Three o’clock! I got one at three o’clock.” And he says, “I got twenty at six o’clock.”

And that son of a gun--they taught them (Vietnamese soldiers) to shoot towards the biggest part of the helicopter-- but we had our doors open, and that dang rocket just went behind my head in this door and out the other door and hit a big ol’ tree over there and blowed a limb down on us; and our rotors got all messed up, and we bounced down on the ground, and it crashed and burned. We all got out of that son of a gun. But we was there ‘till, I guess, hell, about two o’clock. you know. Oh, we was crawlin’ around out there, (where they had crashed), and shootin’ you know. Hell I was brave. Anyway, they (US soldiers), come and got us again, and I thought surely we’re gonna be writtin’ up a report on this bastard--Nuh uh. They put us in another helicopter, and they sent us out there. I told this ol’ boy I says, “Hey, this morning we went to a place, it ain’t two blocks from there [where we were going], I says, you can land two helicopters in. You can get everybody out.”

“Well ok. We’ll tell them about it,” (said an official).

“Hell, I was just there this mornin’,” I says. “I ain’t really wantin’ to go back in that place again.” God damn. Wouldn’t ya know it? [I was sent back to the same place.] Everybody got out [safe] but three. They went to the other place, [not where I had landed]. We went and lifted them out, and got them back where it was safe. Who the hell am I with, Scarlet Screamer. I don’t know what the hell [his real name is] that’s all we called him, he would scream into the microphone. He wanted to get the Medal of Honor. He didn’t care how he got it. Anyway, we go back in that god damn place. [We] stick the tail rooter into one of them limbs, and we’re down again. That was my first day.

We get picked up, and we go back to the base camp and we’re outta helicopters. Well, the only thing I been issued is my little pistol, I ain’t got a rifle. I ain’t got nothin’! Who gets hit that night? Pleiku (a Landing Zone) gets hit. We was right on the Plei Ku. We get hit. I’m in this son of a bitchin’ fox hole with this old boy, Jesus Christ, I says, “How many rounds we took?”

“Oh, we took about a hundred.” (says a man beside him).

I said, “God damn, I’d go AWOL if I could find the wall.”

He said, “I’d go with ya.”

I says, “Hell, you’re a pretty good. Who the hell are ya?”

“Oh, Lincoln,” (says the man beside him.)

“Uh, Lincoln, what the hell’s your first name?”

“John”

“By god I’m glad to meet ya, but I ain’t crazy ‘bout this shit.”

“He says “How long ya been here,” asks John.

I says, “One day.”

He says, “You’ll get used to it.”

So the next day I get to go and report to the company commander. Get all signed in, hell I wasn’t even signed in. Well, I go in there, [and say] “Warrant Officer Hurt reporting, sir. John, is that you?”

“Yeah.”

Hell, John [was in that] foxhole. Yeah, I tell ya. It was somethin’. Yeah, I called him Uncle John after [that].

Another funny story, I don’t know how funny it is, it was funny to me. We had them big ol’ towers, and what we used was, uh, these big telephone poles. They’d run up in the air--oh hell, about fifty or sixty feet, and then you’d build a platform on ‘em where you could spot artillery and stuff. They had one there, (at our base), and we was bein’ hit, Kontum, (a Landing Zone) yeah, I think it was Kontun. Well, you know me, we’re down for lunch, I want to crawl up there and see what the hell I could see, ya know. Well I go shimmying up that god damn, it takes awhile ‘cause they got those dang-- it’s just planks and they’re about four foot apart, ya know, it wasn’t no little ladder like thing. Well, we get up there and we’re looking--me and ol’ Dennis--hell, he’s right there with me, ol’ Dennis Ledbetter, God I love him! (He was only seventeen). We’re up there looking and they (Vietnamese) hit us with mortars. Now I don’t know how god damn fast you can get down outta there; but you can hear the mortars leave the tubes, “womph”, and they go way up in the air and come back down on ya. We was down at the bottom of that son of a gun and in a foxhole before that mortars left the tube and hit. The second one [mortar] hit the edge of that damn thing (the tower) and knocked the damn thing over. That was close. Yeah, I tell ya what though, Dennis was right on top of me. I was faster than he was; I was the bottom one in that foxhole.

Tell ya about Dennis. You got about two foot of room between the rotor blades [and] where it goes down into your helicopter. And we (my crew and I) went in to pick up some wounded people, and they had that elephant grass that they had cut. Elephant grass is like saw grass, you know, like cut grass except it gets about fifteen or twenty feet tall. So, we picked up some wounded people and we started back outta there. Man, I didn’t have no power, just barely runnin’, ya know. God dang, (I said,) “Dennis we got problems buddy.”

“What’s the matter Mr. Hurt?” (Dennis asks.)

“Losing power,” I says. “I guess we got some grass up there in the vent. [I will] look for a place [to] land and get it outta there.”

Well shit, every place belonged to Charlie (Vietnamese Fighters) we didn’t have no friendly place [to land] for about twenty miles. He says, “I’ll take care of it.”

“What?”

I’m talkin’, ya know, we could talk on the intercom. By god he didn’t answer. Well, I hear this, “Clunk, clunk, clunk.” We’re doin’ about sixty miles an hour in the air tryin’ to fall through the trees, and he’s up on top of that son of a gun, (the helicopter) ducking that rotor blade, pulling that grass off so I’ll get some power back. Yeah! Me, I’m scared to ride a bicycle that fast. There ain’t nothing to hang onto. I mean, you just up there. He gets that shit all pulled off, and boy I get my power back. He crawls in there and says, “Is that better Mr. Hurt?”

I say, “Dennis, I should kick your ass. You got no business doin’ that. You could a got killed.”

He says, “Mr. Hurt you promised me that if I kept this son of a bitch where it would fly you would get me home. I kept my part, now get me home.”

“By god you got it!”

On his eighteenth birthday he wanted me to buy him a case of beer ‘cause the Army wouldn’t let him have three beers. Hey, him and me had been out there (in war) killing people and getting ourselves shot up and he couldn’t have a beer. I didn’t buy him a case of beer. I bought him five cases [of beer] and all the booze he wanted.

[The] actual combat life time of a pilot was twenty-five seconds, in actual combat. The only life expectancy shorter is your door gunner, which is ten seconds, in actual combat. I’ve got fifteen hundred hours of combat. [It is] supposed to take six months to make Aircraft Commander. I made Aircraft Commander in twenty-seven days ‘cause every body else was gone (dead). Everything they taught you in flight school you might as well throw it out the window; it don’t mean nothing in combat. See, I had to take basic twice ‘cause of that name mix up, an’ [because] I enlisted again. After I come back (from the second round of basic), I was given direct commissions to First Lieutenant. I didn’t have to make Second Lieutenant and I was promised Captain in a year. Which I got that too. I was old too, I was twenty-four [years old] in Vietnam.

As an aviator, we seen more battles. That’s what we went for, the battles. We took the people in where they could fight; we supplied ‘em with meals, ammunition, water. We extracted the wounded. We extracted the dead. We did that on a daily basis and if it wasn’t hot (if there wasn’t any action) we didn’t go there. [If] there wasn’t no shooting, there wasn’t no need for us. We would break ground at five o’clock in the morning, and we’d quit flying, oh, usually about ten o’clock at night. Some of it was milk runs, which is when you don’t receive any fire, and some of it was definitely not a milk run.

Well, I got my back screwed an’ I couldn’t fly for a while. They (the U.S. Government) told my crew they were going to have to fly with somebody else--they refused, [and] damn near got court marshaled. [They were told to fly under someone else], and they wouldn’t do it. So I took out a little earlier than I should of I guess, but I didn’t want ‘em to get court marshaled. Well, they (the government) put another crew with me; and my [old] crew come over an’ whooped them off the helicopter, and we took off.

[My crew trusted me and I trusted them.] My crew’d tell me, “Left six inches.” I knew I wanted to take that left six inches. I didn’t want to go seven and I didn’t want go five. We would practice. What I’d do is I’d get it (the helicopter) and go down on a flat place. My left rear skid hung down an inch and a half lower than my right rear skid, and we’d drag [a] rock around and put it on a predestined place, X on the ground [by following each other’s verbal instructions]

There were two ways to get in [to an area]. You came in as low as you could get an’ as fast as you could go, or you got up as high as you could get then all you did was lay ‘er on ‘er side an’ come straight down. If you circle, you’d get shot at with anything from sand missiles, to a crossbow arrow--have been taken down by a cross bow arrow. It went right through the vents of my engine housing, and nicked a hydraulic lining and they shot me down. That was the easy part. That was a, “thunk” and you were all right. Those machine guns, they sorta tore you up when they got a hold of ya.

Our flight plans had to be filed and approved by the Vietnam government twenty-four hours in advance. We got to noticing that every time we filed we’d be taking fire all the time we got to our location and all the way we got back. So we worked for MACV, I’ll tell you the name of that when I turn sixty-five. We just called it MACV. It was just highly classified, and we didn’t have to follow the strict flight plan. We get to noticing we wasn’t getting shot up as much when they (the Vietnamese) didn’t know where we was going, but that was not one of the better thing we did.

We had, our company chose, the frequency 93.3 on FM; and anybody that called that frequency wanting a e-vac (Emergency Evacuation) we would guarantee to have their people to medical attention within fifteen minutes. We pulled into this LZ (landing zone) that was taking all kinds of fire. The unit commander [that was] on the ground was a First Lieutenant. He says, “They’re hittin’ us. We’re surrounded. How many can you carry?”

I says, “Wh?.”

And he says, “Well the rest of us will hold them off; but there comin’ in, he says, and we can’t hold ‘em all off.”

So, I thought I’m supposed to pick out the ones I’m gonna save and the ones that’s gonna be left there to die. I said, “I can’t do it.” I says. “Have them shed their packs, and have ‘em crawl in here and lay down, and keep their guns and shoot a little bit at a time; and when I get ready to lift off, have ‘em throw their guns out.”

Well, they is just layin’ in there like pencils stacked up. We got ready to go. Boy! I sucked everything I had and couldn’t even get off the ground. So, we was by the edge of a cliff that was about two or three hundred feet straight down. I thought, “Boy, if I could just get to the edge of that cliff maybe there would be enough air coming off that cliff it could get me airborne.”

Well there wasn’t. We fell over the cliff, and hit a tree about half way down and that tree was just like a diving board. We hit that tree and it went down like that, (moving his hand down), and flipped us out like that, (moving hand up), and we as airborne. I mean that ol’ engine was whinnin’ low. We got her in. Boy, I couldn’t get more than forty miles an hour out of it. That’s all it would pull. We had twenty-eight people, plus a crew of four on board.

I run into one of them ol’ boys, (that had been in the helicopter). I had been back home about ten years. It was after I worked at the post office. I had a little belt buckle that had a helicopter on it you know and he was drivin’ a mail truck. “You fly helicopters?”

“Yeah,” (I replied.)

“Boy, them is some of the craziest son of a bitches I ever seen.”

“Well sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

He says, “We got pulled out of a place. I dunno how many of us was in there, and this old boy couldn’t get it (the helicopter) off the ground; and we went over this cliff and hit a big tree, and we flew in (to a Landing Zone) and he let us out. I don’t know how many people he had in there, but we couldn’t breathe. We was stacked all the way to the top.”

I says, “There was twenty-eight of ya. I was that crazy son of a bitch in the front.”

That was the first time I ever been kissed by a guy flush on the mouth. Yeah!

“You saved my life!” [the man said]

“Wow, by God. This ain’t California, cut me some slack,” (I joked.)

I figured, by God, I wasn’t gonna choose who was gonna die and who was gonna live. I told ‘em either we all make it or nobody make it, ya know, that way they can’t say I didn’t try. ‘Cause I figured that every young man over there, (in Vietnam), he had a family at home. If he didn’t have a wife, he had parents and brothers or sisters. If I was gonna get ‘em out, I was gonna get ‘em out any way I could.

I tell you what saved my life faster [than anything else] was I always carried a uh hundred dollar bill, American, with me--that was illegal as hell. You can’t take foreign currency, American currency, into foreign county. But I got places I wasn’t supposed to. And [I] told the ol’ boy (Vietnamese) I had another one (hundred dollar bill) at home if he got me there well I rode in style. I rode in his jeep an’ he took me right to the gate. When we got there, I got ‘em another hundred bucks ‘cause [the currency ratio is] 5000:1 (five thousand Vietnamese coin for one American currency). So, next time I seen him, he was a rich man; yeah, I was damn glad he was.

[We] went all the way across there into Phnom Pen, (City in Cambodia). It’s hard to believe, but it’s the truth. Had Russian jets, American jets, Chinese jets all the other aircraft down in there and refueling. It was international. You got five miles away from that place everybody was shooting at each other. Yeah, we went in there and we refueled. (It was a cease fire area.)

You come back when I’m sixty five and I got some stories that’ll curl your hair. But I’m not authorized to release them till I’m the age of sixth five since I’m still under military control. At this time if I tell you some stories of stuff that happened, they (the government) could recall me, court marshal me, and I could end up in Leavenworth (a military prison). We (U.S. soldiers) was told that once we left there (Vietnam) if we was interviewed [by] anybody with the press or anything national, we could talk about our sex life and that was it. Nobody wanted to hear about it (our sex life), I even tried that but it didn’t get printed.

We had to do something to break the cycle. We had a bear. We called him Bear. He was a pet, a black bear, a honey bear. The bear was like the rest of us at that time--he was quite an alcoholic. He liked beer. We’d throw a six-pack in the cage, and the bear would just open up the cans, bite into ‘em an’ drink the beer. Once he got a six-pack down ‘em you could go in an’ wrassle with Bear, dance with Bear, do anything you wanted to do. He was just like a big ol’ dog. Well, one night I’d been drinking a little bit, this was back in my drinkin’ days, and I seen Bear out there in the cage. He was wollerin’ around like he’d had a six-pack. Well, I crawl into the cage with the bear and I’m going to wrassle ‘em. Well, he wasn’t having a six-pack he was coming out of a hangover. Bear was mean. There I was, in all my glory, running round inside that cage screaming and hollering with the bear. A good friend of mine, Larry Marsh, he’d been in the same place (same base camp) I was with a guitar. He played the guitar and sang. He was a real good. Yeah [he saw me in the cage]. (He said,) “Jim, I’ll save ya!”

So he come in the cage with me. I was runnin’ with the bear behind me, and Larry Marsh running after that bear. Finally, Larry caught that bear and he start teaching that bear how to play that guitar. Well, there wasn’t much left of that guitar, but its neck with a few strings on it [after he was done with Bear]. Bear, he decide, “Well, it’s one thing chasing a drunk guy, but it another thing chasing a drunk guy with a drunk guy with a guitar chasing you.”

Well, Bear decided it was time to do his dance so he could get his beer. So me and Larry got out of there, an’ got him a whole case of beer. We was glad to get out of there. We had to get rid of the bear. He got out one time and got into a colonel’s hut; and, uh, he drank all his whiskey and all his beer so we sent him to a zoo in Saigon. He was a nice bear.

Beach Boys was there (in Vietnam). We’d been drinking a little bit, me and him (the drummer); and then he didn’t have nothing to beat the drums with (he had given the sticks to me) So, I had to give him his sticks back. Yeah, that poor son of a gun. But hell, he was friendly. Hell, we went out [and] showed him the bear and everything.

John Wayne, God, forget that pussy. We had an area--he was, uh, making “Green Beret”, my helicopter is in that movie. We didn’t get no recognition for it, but we flew ‘em around whereever they (the people in the “Green Beret”) was going. We put him (John Wayne) down in an area [that had been securely searched and deemed safe] before the Duke (John Wayne) would land--before he would land--and the other bastards (Celebrities I had met) went out with me in the middle of no where. But I guess that (the safety precautions) was because of the insurance and being what a star he (John Wayne) was. That damn John Wayne though, he got me hooked on that Chevis Regal (an alcohol). That’s the only thing that son of a gun would drink. Now, the rest of that booze I could get for a dollar, a dollar and a quarter a fifth and this shit was six dollars. I figured if the Duke could drink it, I could drink it. He got drunk and he was obnoxious. I was always obnoxious, [it] didn’t make no difference whether I was drinking or not. Yeah, the Duke, I knew ‘im. I seen a lot of ‘im. I’ve seen ‘em good. I’ve seen ‘em bad. I’ve seen drunk. I’ve seen ‘em sober. Yeah it was alright, it was ok. I seen a lot of groups from Australia an’, uh, the Philippines; yeah, the Philippines come in real good. They didn’t understand the language, but they could mimic the songs phonetically an’ man they was good.

I had one glass of water in a year. They say you got to have all that water to drink, naw, beer and whiskey’s just as good. It’s good and wet, and I never thought I was all that drunk; I was able to function. So any body pushing this bottled water and stuff, naw, you don’t need it. Go[es] all the way back to my schoolhood days, [I]went to school with a little hangover an’ [my] biology teacher got a little worm and put it in a glass of alcohol. That worm just shriveled up and died. He said, “[Do] you know what that means Jim?”

I said, “Yes sir, if I drink enough alcohol I ain’t going to have no worms.”

We went over (my group of men) with 192 of us; ninety seven of us came back. That included the wounded. We lost 58,000 [U.S. soldiers]. [There were] estimated reports of the dead in the millions for the Vietnamese and Chinese. We had Chinese [deaths], we had Russian [deaths], but their bodies are just bodies.

I run into a Vietnamese down at the college (PSU). He’d been a college professor down at Vietnam. Only trouble is he worked for the North. The North Vietnamese. My unit [and] his unit tangled several times. We talked about it over a couple beers. I was doing my job an’ he was doing his job.

[The jobs I did in Vietnam warranted me getting many awards and recognitions.] I also got the Distinguished Flying Cross. I turned [The Metal of Honor] down. That’s why I got that (indicating the Distinguished Flying Cross). That’s the highest award given for aviation combat. There ain’t nothing any higher. I was very proud of that one. I was in four major campaigns, got the good conduct ribbon--I know your going to laugh about that, but I did get it. I earned it. There are air medals (indicating the metals on the table). You got an air medal for every twenty-five to fifty hours of combat. I got twenty-seven of them.

I tell you what when I come home from Vietnam it wasn’t no homecoming like you have seen. We (the returning soldiers) had to stop in San Francisco for a layover. I was supposed to be there for two hours, but [there] happened to be a hippie convention. I wasn’t no hippie. I didn’t mind being called “baby killer” or “women killer” when the draft dodgers spit on me--I’m glad I put two of ‘em down, and I would have gotten another one down if the cops hadn’t got me. I thought, “I’ve been gone a year, I’m twenty-four hours or less from seeing my wife, and I’m probably going to jail for five or six years [for assault].”

Yeah, they (the police officers) slapped the cuffs on me, and away we went. We went on down there, I don’t know, a block or two, and we turned into this little coffee shop. [The police officer] took the cuffs off. One of those security cops said, “Sir, we’ll come and get you for your next flight.” And I give them my papers, and they bought me a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie and said, “Some of us appreciate what you did.”

Oh, what pissed me off [was] when Nixon got in (the Presidency) there and pardoned them--see when he pardoned all them draft dodgers they got--all the rights soldiers got they got HUD rights GI Bill rights. The pardon was like they had pulled their duty--they’d been in the army. If he had just abolished it, you know. [If he had given the draft dodgers] amnesty; I couldn’t see nothing wrong with that. I mean hell, there’s lots of times wished I was in Canada. You know, but that sickened me on government. I’m so cynical now, I mean it showed up in the tape I’m sure. It changed me. I don’t believe anything I hear. I believe barely half of what I see on T.V.; and if people is honest with me, I’m shocked.

[The entire aspect of the war was hard to handle.] I got disillusioned like everybody else did over there [in Vietnam] since I wasn’t fighting for a cause. [We] wasn’t fightin’ for justice. The best thing I could do was save lives if I could, American lives; and I found out sometimes the best way to save American lives was to take lives. So, it was a toss up between rescuing people and hunting people. You seen the western movies two gladiators get ready to draw a sundown [for] honor. [In war you] killed any way you can, fair or not fair. I wouldn’t recommend war to anybody. There [has] got to be a better way, a better way to settle arguments. Apparently, they haven’t found one yet. It’s never the people [people that have to fight] that start the wars; it’s the old men sitting back like me saying, “They ought to do this, they ought to kick somebody else’s butt.” It’s the young men, the cream of the crop; they’re the ones that die. There ain’t no need for that.

Did we walk out of there (Vietnam) proud? I don’t know. I know we came out of there. I know we was winnin’ when I left. Something had to be done, I guess; that (war) is one thing that could have been done. Was it honorable? I really don’t think so, it was like MacArthur comin’ out of the Philippines, “I will return.” Our government went in there (to Vietnam), [and] told ‘em (the Vietnamese people that) we’re going to give you independence. Did we give ‘em independence? Well, it’s divided. Actually, we did.

I tried to remember it (the war) the way it was, the way that it really was; but when you’re misinformed, you got one way of looking at it and reality is totally different. Now I’m an American. I’m proud to be an American. I love the freedom, but there’s nothing free in freedom. You have to pay for every bit of it. As far as our government being honest and open, no [I don’t think it is]. I guess you have the right to know some things, but a lot of stuff you don’t have the right to know. We call Vietnam a ten thousand day war. See, there’s Montagnards over there that’s fighting to this day. This will be about eight generations that all they know is war. That[s] the people that deserve freedom, not the people that sit around here. It’s not like the New York City Marathon. It’s a one-on-one basis there (in war). [There is] no glory in war, none. There’s only the living and the dead. If you was living, you won. If you was dead, you didn’t. If the American public was informed to what the problem [in Vietnam really] was, the American public wouldn’t have let anybody [go] to Vietnam.

I’ll tell you I’m not afraid anything. I’ve done proven that I don’t have to prove anything to anybody, but I still have to sleep with a night light. I wake up Barb (Barbara, his wife, because of his nightmares). It’s got to the point where she can reach over and get a hold of me an’ say, “Hey, it’s time to wake up.”

But ‘bout ten years you didn’t get a hold of me an’ tell me its time to wake up.

(His wife tells of her experiences with his nightmares) Now this happened not ten years ago, not even a year ago--I woke up in the middle of the night and he (Jim) was off his side of the bed, an all he had on the mattress was his elbows. I don’t remember exactly what was said to him, but it was something it had to do with the war. I don’t remember the exact words or anything; but I grabbed ‘im an pulled ‘im up on the bed, and told him they’re not there any more, or something like that; but that wasn’t ten years ago. That was a year ago at the most. One [incident], this was just last summer, [Jim was] sittin’ outside, he likes to sit outside in his outside rockin’ chair in the summer, an’ I had been workin’ in the garden. He was sitting there an’ he sometimes falls asleep, so I go check on him every now an’ again. I come around from the garden, and look at ‘im an’ that ol’ rockin’ chair is goin’ like eighty [miles per hour], and he’s just going like this (rocking fast), you know, real fast. What he’s doing is he’s runnin’ in his sleep.

And I go up there, and just I touch ‘em and he’s boy like this (stiffens up). [It] scared the shit out of me, you know, because always before he’d come out of it (his dreams) real quick.

(Jim continues the conversation) The worse dream I ever had I was back in Vietnam, and, uh, the first person I killed, you’ll never for get it, he was after me an’ I was over there (in Vietnam), an’ he was still young, and I was fat and old and I had my cane, and I couldn’t get away from him. I couldn’t get away from that son of a gun. I tried everything. He had everything; he had [a] gun an’ everything, just like he did when I shot him. I had my ol’ cane. I was tryin’--everything I pulled he knew it. And I back tracked, I slipped off, I flanked, and-- God I was glad when Barb (his wife) woke me up. I mean, I don’t mind if I gatta go back (to Vietnam), but I want to go back with the same deal they (my enemies) [have], you know; if they can be young an’ mean, I want to be young and mean.

(Barbara speaks of his life after Vietnam) You know, I think that when Jim came home from Vietnam his life was just as interesting [as his life during Vietnam]. He was an air traffic controller at the base; he was in educational T.V.--produced educational films for the Army. When we went to Fort Leonardwood, he was a Company Commander for infantry; he worked at the Astron General Office preparing cases for the lawyers and stuff. And then, of course, when the kids came along he was a Boy Scout leader for J.L. (his son). He coached baseball, he coached football, he coached softball, taught all the kids how to ride motorcycles.

(Jim resumes the conversation about his life after the war) Well, I’ve raised four children; maybe I didn’t raise ‘em right. You know, I did the best I could with what I had. I messed up several times in my life, but I did the best I could with what I had. I think that’s what life is all about--do the best you can with what you got, no matter if you’re a big man in control or a small man selling stamps. If you do a good job of it that would be an accomplishment.

The biggest part of it is what you make of it, if you want to. Let it bother you, or if you don’t want to let it bother you.

This Interview was conducted by Elizabeth Arthur

December 2003

(…) were used as explanatory devices

[…] add for clarity