Jack, I wonder if first of all you could tell me you know what your name was, what your rank was in the Marine and how you got to be there just briefly.

Okay. First of all my name is Jack Hill. I started out eighteen years old. I left high school as a semi-drop out. I had four months before I graduated but I wasn't fairly interested in graduating but I went in the Marine Corps due to ah the ah I wanted to experiment, experience in ah and I liked the service. I, I did want to volunteer for Vietna—I did volunteer to go to Vietnam.

Why did you volunteer to go to Vietnam?

I won't say it was a patriotic thing to do because it wasn't. I am an adventurer. I like ah at that time I felt that I wanted to go and see what was going on.

What struck you when you first got there and who did you join up with. I mean...?

When we first go to Vietnam I ah it was a mass of mess. There was millions of people around. Everybody. Running from this place and that place. I first had a hunch I wanted to be a machine gunner on a huey but that cancelled out right away because you hear rumors about the death rate. You know, if you got this job you'd die quicker, or if you got that job you might live six months but the span of life was only six months so...I ah we got to ah Hotel Company 2-1. First, uh, Second Battalion 1st Marines which was...fairly...

What period is this? What...what time did you join...?

I got to Vietnam, I'd say about the end of November just before the first of December. There's...hot day, but, I ah but ah ah there was a lot of mass confusion. You didn't know what was going on until it took a few days to settle down. You were still you know wondering where the hell you were at because it was just one of those places you couldn't even recognize and ah at the same time it was a nice looking place. Beautiful. All greenish and stuff.

And ah, but we got to the company and ah that same day it rained on us so after that it was just orientating you know. Picking up your gear and ah getting orientated to what you had to do. First day was just total chaos.

You because ah a point man I believe. What I wonder if you can tell me briefly first of all what a point man does and what was your first mission, mission like and if you could look at me rather than at Larry. That's...

Well why I had roamed around there for about two or three days. Guys was rotating and we was asked to ha you know pick a specific job what we wanted to do so I ah being adventurous like I am picked point man. I thought it was...if I had to get it or I have to find my way around I was pretty capable of doing that. You know just my uh intuition said I could do it so I picked the job for myself.

What does a point man do?

Well, mainly you get out there in front and you sort of stick your nose out there and sort of look for booby traps and ah unknown things that normal people just can't see. You know, like trip wires, you got your tripwires, you got an ambush set up. You know you got your open terrain you got to go into and stuff like that but mainly it's out there fighting, making a way to ah for the rest of the squad to get into a certain areas and stuff and ah that's pretty hairy.

What was it like being out on your first few missions? What was it like being out on your first few missions? I mean when were you first with somebody, for example, who was killed in your unit or what was that, what did it feel like?

Well, it was a little shaky, a little scared. The first experience I had was like it was a nighttime. Ah. Booby trap went off. Ah. One of the ah 3rd squad points, point man had gotten hit. Ah. At night. So, it was like totally dark and all you could see was a big flash of light go off and you hear the screaming and hollering but nobody got killed on the first ah first nighttime patrol.

You're nervous. You're nervous, very nervous. You're shaky. You want to know what's going on. You want to do the right thing and ah you're very nervous. You're very nervous and scared. Ah. You're ah, you're constantly, you don't know what to do until it happens. Your first fire fight. You know, you're looking for all the older guys in the squad to tell you what to do cause you don't know nothing.

On my first patrol I was out on I got pinned down for about fifteen seconds so we had a machine gunner come up there and he got me out of it and then ah we were return fire and ah we set up a little ah ah sweep. It took us about most of the day to get into the village and ah we got in there, we didn't take no casualties. We—we had taken no prisoners. We didn't take nothing. It was just hit-and-run type thing they pull on you. They, they snipe at you and then they pin you down for ten, twenty minutes. Next thing you know they're gone.

What did you actually think about the Vietnamese? Did you have any thoughts about the Vietnamese?

Ah. Ya, I thought they was ah fairly friendly people. The ones that I've encountered. I mean guerrillas is a different thing (chuckle) from human beings, but, the Vietnamese people themselves I felt were fairly friendly people.

Okay. I'd like to—to move on Jack. As I, as I was telling you we've been in Vietnam, and we were taken to a village called Thuy Bo ah and our research indicate that the company that went into Thuy Bo ah on that date, January 31 was Hotel Company ah. You were in Hotel Company. I wonder if you can think back to the end of—of—of January. I believe there were some incidents before. We have fair information on that.

The first two days I believe were very tough ah fighting and quite a few men were lost. My interest is really in on—on the third day when I believe a Lieutenant Connors was killed. I wonder if you could set me up just briefly about the first two days and then move on to the third day and just tell me about it.

Well, I could say like normally you come through on a village and the operation you come through on is sweeping motion. On line and you're sweeping through the village.

So, we get up to this village and ah first we start off with a little light sniper fire you know. Then—then you get this fifty calibers opened up, you're getting thirty calibers opened up and ah you're getting people falling all over and so you're, you're running around trying to find out what you're doing. So, we spread out and dug in. We're waiting for the word to ah to advance, but there wasn't no advance.

We was pinned down and we were pinned down all day, all night. And the rain...it rained like something pitiful. You couldn't see nothing. You couldn't see nothing. You was just pinned down. And ah we had casualties. We took a lot of casualties and ah ah just laying out there hearing hear...and you're partner's crying. But, they was hit.

We had ah one PFC Dumas I think he got killed on that operation. For sure. And, ah, I seen his squad leader Hall get up and run out there towards him cause he was on a sweeping motion like this here and Dumas was at this position like this here and our squad was coming up on this side and ah he'd gotten hit and his squad leader jumped up out there and he ran out there to aid him and stuff. Then he got hit with a fifty caliber but it only glanced off his flight jacket. He got hit in the leg and ah he crawled the rest of the way out there and he stayed out there all day with him.

My squad leader ah Corporal Munez he got hit point blank with a fifty caliber. He laid out there and died. Just laying around waiting to ah waiting to watching your partners die. That's what we did.

For two days?

Two days.

What, you said, I mean it, it conjures up horrifies. Tell me more about it. What sort of things were said? What did it sound like? What...?

Well, it was intense gunfire. It sounded like a jackhammer. If you ever heard a jackhammer going off, it sounded like you had about ten or fifteen jackhammers going off at the same time. I mean total chaos. There was hardly...the little return fire we could get off was barely enough to do any damage at all.

So, you know, you laid down there and you shoot with your hand up over your head, and you wait another ten or fifteen minutes (chuckle) to see if it's safe enough to shoot. If not, you just lay there. Just lay and wait. You try and maneuver for positions, you know, and ah see if you could get in that village but we could not get in that village. There was no way.

And, we wasn't fighting ourselves. We hardly wasn't fighting ourselves. We watch guys...I'd watch big guys lay there and cry for their mothers all night long. Dying. Slowly dying. Asking to be shot because you can't take it no more. And, you're sitting up there with you're, but you're a bundle of nerves. You're a bundle of nerves and all you can do is wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And, we waited till the ah—till it lightened up and then ah we advanced towards the village.

We got in that village. There was there was no cartridge shells left around, there were no, there were no signs of no VC enemy at all. They had old women, old men, babies, you know. And ah it was mass chaos. Like I say everybody's running around screaming. We got in the village and asking where the VC were and people in the village were saying no VC and like at one end of the village you could hear machine gun fire going off and people screaming, you know, and you know that somebody was either down in one of them holes getting dug out of there or something and ah you we dropped plenty of hand grenades down in—in booby traps and I mean in holes and stuff to ah to see if we could root 'em out.

And, you go into a hootch and you got ah you got tunnels in there and you got old ladies and kids in there running out and ah we didn't ah I didn't shoot any old ladies and kids. I know, I know half the guys in my squad didn't shoot no old ladies and kids because it—it just there wasn't a fight there. You know, they probably got shot some of them probably got shot or killed as we advanced towards their village. But you're shooting from a hundred yards away and whatever iii...to whom it may concern. That's it, you don't know.

So, you actually yourself went into the village itself. I gather there was two—two com...two platoons were blocking and one—one platoon actually went in.

Gone in to search.

So you were in on the...

The search.

You were in on the search.

I was in on the search.

I wonder, could you could you go through that again. As you say it was all sort of mayhem. Could you tell me, I wonder were you close, for example, where ahm Connors was killed? Were you around there? Can you remember that? Can you remember any orders being given or...?

Well, I think we just ah set up our regular 360 perimeter after he had gotten hit and stuff to see if we could get a MEDEVAC in. Cause we had several MEDEVAC ah people we were trying to get out. So, ah, basically, you know, you have the corpsmen up checking them out and ah and if he's DOA that's it. You just cover him up and he lays there and you stack all the bodies up that you can and you try to get them out of there on the first MEDEVAC coming in after that.

Okay. Stop now. I think we're running out of...are we. Good. That's going well. Are you happy...at ease?

Jack, I'd like you to think back again to that day. It's the third day. I wonder if you can ah describe to me the—the—the first casualty on that day and the orders and what happened.

Well, we had already had casualties that night before. I think we had casualties from almost the first day we got there so the casualty list was already up ah the third day. We had casualties; we took casualties. I don't know when the word that ah that the captain had gotten hit but ah he'd gotten hit, you know, and we was waiting to ah for further word on evacuation.

So, there was a mass confusion on getting our, you gotta get your dead and wounded to a certain spot have it set up and then you set up your 360 for that to come in but the main thing we were concerned about is our security. You know you have to ah with that type of action where everybody was worried about their own security and—and what was going to take place in that next event. You know, the captain was already dead and there was nothing you could do.

We didn't take no prisoners. We didn't ah...we didn't take nothing but a whole lot of flack. We got a whole lot of wounded and KIA's that day on our side. On their side we ah we—we didn't report no KIA's on their side because like it was mass confusion when we got in that village. I mean guys on our side were just ah concerned with their own safety and like I say when you go through that hootch, ah one of those, one of those hootches, you're gonna give it, you're gonna give it to them. And, whoever else was in that hole or whoever was around there when the, when you spread out like that, they, they, they're going to get it.

The guys' attitude, our attitude was very ah was very poor because we ah we took a lot of KIA's that day. We, ah a lot of friends. We lost a lot of friends. Our emotions were—were very low. You know cause the ah the death rate was ridiculous for what we figured was a friendly village. So, the orders were search and destroy. That was, that was what the last order was. We gonna search and destroy. And, that's the way it went down.

In speaking to some of your buddies from that period ahm a lot of what you say has similar evocations for...They— they come up with similar things. One thing that they ahm they do say is just as you say the guys were very upset and very angry. But, I wonder can you remember what the actual order was? Can you remember Captain Banks or anybody in command of you giving a specific order as to what was to be done in that village? Can you remember anything?

Ah, ah. The—the—the last order was came down from ah squad leader. The squad leader was we're going to search and destroy and after we do we're pulling up. That's the way it went. Search and destroy as you go in there and whatever was moving around wasn't going to move no more. And that was the general attitude. Like that daily, that was a daily thing. It was it was called search and destroy. That's what we went in there and done.

Mainly like not a lot of women and children. We didn't, it wasn't to say it was mass murder-type like thing, but like I say you get in the way of M-14 or M-16 caliber machine gun there's no telling who's going to get killed. And, you got an angry eighteen-year-old kid behind the gun and he's just seen his buddy get killed, he's not going to have no remorse for who's on the receiving end of that 60-caliber machine gun.

But at that time we, our attitude was just hey we're getting the hell out of here in a hurry as soon as we get the word to pull out. That's what we done. We got the word to pull out. We set up our—our ah our 360 to get out of there. We got our dead and wounded out of there and ah on the way out of that village we caught holy hell again. They dogged us for almost a hundred yards back out of that same village that we just went into.

I was told by one guy that he went in and as far as he was concerned was the order is and it's a quote here and I don't know whether you be able to read it or not, "The order was to kill everybody. Then we started killing everybody." Would that be similar to your recollection of that day?

Ya. But everybody didn't get killed. Some did. I mean they got...there was some got shot. There was people that got shot. But everybody didn't get killed that day like that. Cause you just flat out refused to do that. I mean you wouldn't refuse to do it but you just wouldn't, you wouldn't do it, you know. It was no need to kill an innocent woman and her baby. There was no need for that, you know. Some guys had a feeling to do that, but that's the way it went down.

One of the other people we were speaking to saying that there, a lot of the people weren't running around, that they were actually in their hootches when they were there, and they were, in fact, still—still killed and in fact somebody else, and this is, I'm giving you all quotes from Americans now. I'm not speaking about what the Vietnamese have to say. Another American guy said that ahm some of the members of the company were "Acting like barbarians and were actually killing people in the hootches." Do you think that could conceivably have gone on? Did you see first of all. Tell me what you saw only and not...

From what I seen. I seen...My team wh we was mainly pull security. We was the first team in, we, we, unlo—we unloaded several rounds. We dropped a couple of grenades in the hootches to get the people out because to get one Vietnamese out of that hole that won't come. I mean you had, we didn't speak perfect Vietnamese so ah in order to get them out of there you either cranked off a couple of rounds or you dropped you're M-26 grenade down there and they get the message and they come on out of there. You know, if they got wounded or if they got hit that was that was the point of war. Something you have to live with.

Is there anything that sticks in your mind of that operation which either worried you or that you saw going on? Was it a typical operation or was it an untypical operation?

Well, to my recollection ya it was typical. Something we done everyday. Not the killing part and I mean we don't ah a normal operation you gonna take, a lot of, a lot of people gonna get killed, but on s...on a on a regular search mission like what we had came down with the order was that they had ah VC troops in that area an—an—an and from in fact they said it was a friendly village and you go in with the with your guard down thinking it's a friendly village and—and—and you encounter the enemy for so long you ah your attitude changes. So that day it was n...it was just like any other operation. You had to do it. You know, you had to do it. Something you had to do.

This is a direct question. Did you yourself see any men killing women and children?

Civilians. No, not off hand. No. To be honest not off hand. None of my team. I didn't see none of my team.

How many men in your particular team?

Ah. We had about, after the squad leader got killed we had about seven.

So, did you basically go quickly through the village or did you do holding operation? Did you wait outside or what? How long were you actually in the center of the village?

Ah. We was in the goo—in the village for a good hour or two. We was in there for a long while. You have to get, sort of maintain some sort of control to find out who's, who's what, you know. And, there was nobody who's what and you know you got no commander. Your company commander just got hit and you looking for somebody else to give a direct order and you either got a staff sergeant out there or you got a corporal that knows what's going on and you wait.

I was only a PFC so ah my job was just to set up my security and make sure that ah my sector was taken care of, you know. I put up that security cause you had to do it. You eeee—either end up with your back turning and getting shot. So, you know, it was like you're run in that village and then anybody in there you come La Di get out, you know. And they'd get out and you circle everybody up there and ah you—you go through this questioning thing, you know. And, then they say you first team out, and you know you, I'm the point man and they say pull out, you pull out. I get out of there. I pull out of with my gun and I'm up front. Never looking back.

You know, know what's, you know and they were still firing. There firing going on. Like the village, there was f...there was gunfire going all over that village. The whole village was, was just in a chaos and of fire after we got in there. Those guys just getting their—their stuff off, you know. You and—and there could nothing you could do about that.

What happens in ah in that situation normally and, indeed, what happened on that particular day. You say you go in ah you do some quick questioning or you searching. Now, on that particular day what happened? You go into the village. You've explained that there was a lot of, a lot of fighting and you'd throw a grenade ah down if you see there's a tunnel but were the prisoners taken that day? Do you know...?

No, there was no prisoners. There was there was no nothing. There was no nothing. After—after ah the ah command was to search and destroy. That was it. There was there was there was a lot of people left alive around that village. There was a lot, you know. You do what you got to do, and you pull out. They called in they told us to pull out in that area and we got we got the word to pull out.

We was in there a couple of hours trying to maintain ah what had happened. There was, you know, you try to maintain law and order and there was none. There was nobody in charge of that village. There was no village chief that you could come and ask you know what's going on here.

Why ah take our men three days to get in here and ah and you people want our help in this area. Saying that they got Viet Cong in there, and we're in here to protect you and we end up fighting this same village that we come here to protect. So, we go the order to move in, move out and that's what it, that's what happens. It's just—it was like every day.

So, as far as you're concerned, ah your recollection of that day and you—you left the village was...Had all the village itself been destroyed?

No. It wasn't totally destroyed. It was, it was burning, it was you know dead and wounded around there and stuff. A lot of burning and stuff. A lot of burning. Burning down the hootches and stuff. It's the only way. That's what we done every day. That's the only way you can ah dig ‘em up. They wasn't coming out of there like your host greeting you at the door. Nothing like that at all. They just was buried in there. Old ladies. I mean men that were ancient. Looked 90-something years old. You couldn't invite ‘em out with a with a with a free meal.

So, I mean, you know, you get tired of ah going through the same routine hour after hour, minute after minute and you're scared yourself about you're going to get shot in the back because one of these little kids will come up and shoot you. We had many a days where we had girls, little girls run up with a basket of chickens and stuff and their chickens would be booby trap.

Think through some of the things that three or four people in Vietnam have...

Jack, go back to this ahm this day yet again. There was just a couple of more things I would like to ah mention which have come up from our research over here. These, these, these Americans we've been speaking to. I've told you that there are allegations that some people weren't running around that they were just in their in their village. One of the other thing that was mentioned and I wonder whether you could recollect anything like this happening is that one guy talks of women and children being pushed into a bunker and then a grenade being thrown in on top of them to deal with them. Is it conceivable that anything like that could have gone on? Did you see anything like that go on?

Could have went on. Could have went on. I really don't know. I wasn't say, for say at one end of the village and was aware of things going on. There was a lot of screaming going on. A lot of ladies and old people and kids crying. You know, it was a mass confusion. And, to say for sure if I seen it, I couldn't, I couldn't really verify it.

Let's just sort of dwell on this whilst I look through my papers. Is there anything that photographically sticks in your mind that you saw specifically that you thought my I wish that wasn't so or I wish that hadn't happened or...? Was there anything that day?

Yaa. No, not that day. Well, the thing I try to put away is seeing my partners getting killed. Laying out there in that ah in that mud and that rain for so long. That's the only thing that really upset me about that whole ah operation. I couldn't give a damn about what happened inside that village. That's my personal feelings.

Show me more about ahm about, we were talking about that earlier and you touched on it and I think it was obviously quite sort of...Can you remember specifically what they were. What they were saying as they were calling to you to help? You're saying that some of your buddies were asking just to be killed or to...?

That's the thing you gotta to listen...You listen to that and ah it's the agony there. You know you got your buddies crying for their mothers. You know, momma, momma, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please help me. And, daddy, and you know, personal things that you that you—you can't do nothing about. And, you're set at two to three yards away and you can't even get up and do anything about it because you're pinned down. You're pinned down. You can't do nothing but sit there and listen to it and ah bug right up. And that, that was the painfullest thing about that whole three-day operation.

Did you use, lose anybody very close to you or was it just buddies in the company?

Well, it was, well I consider it, ah at that time I consider everybody was real close. Like I say the other squad point men there we were we were sort of proud of ourselves because we had come over on the same plane and we got to be in the same company and ah he was a point man for ah first squad and I was point man for second squad. So, we were ahhh, we was kind of you know, proud of ourselves as being, you know, as being buddies and stuff so we kind of looked after each other and talked over little strategy of what we used different as being as far as point men we were doing, you know, and ah the day he got killed was just, you know, terrible exci—upsetting to me period.

My squad leader which I said got killed and ah we had to sit out there with him for two days and ah all you could hear was him, was crying and and—and in agony about ah you know and just suffering. Plain suffering. And there was nothing you could do about it. And that, that's the ah worse thing I ever seen.

When was that? Was it a happy...a corny word to use maybe but was it a happy company, Hotel Company? Were you proud of yourself?

Ya. We...

Tell me something about it.

But, we were new. We had just gotten there. Like—like I say the couple of people that were with me on that particular operation we had just gotten there and ah we was all sort of eager to do a good job and ah and ah gain the respect as being Marines, you know, and we kind of looked after each other cause like I say we came out of boot camp and ah we was on that on that first team there and we got real close cause the old guys that was rotating ah they had their retirement. We was trying to set a pattern for our own selves to do ah good.

And, everybody got along good, you know. I me...like I say, we called it the peons because we were we were like a family. You got twenty guys sleeping in—in the same tent and you're gonna get real close. You know, you know their mothers, you know their sisters, you know their brothers. You know their little personal things, you know and ah when you see that guy laying there and and—and there's just nothing you can do. There's nothing you can do.

Jack, as I said this is this is one of our interviews in Vietnam and ah it's by someone you'd say they were ten years old and in fourth grade school at the time and ah he says that when the American Infantry swept into house they went into his house. There had been artillery shells before that.

"We were only women and children. We didn...we didn't know the VC. This was because we were women and children, etc. They approached us and before they could reach us frightening things happened. For example, they shot ears off of some people. When these people climbed on to the bed, they shot at these people causing their guts to burst all over the place. In fact, the whole body shattered from the knees up. They came and asked us about the VC. We said we didn't know what the VC was so they shot at us. They shot at all of us.

After they shot at us, the burned down the house. Even the domestic animals were killed. Another really brutal thing they did, it was so brutal that no human being could ever have done it. It was that after killing these women and children they stomped on the heads of one of them not yet a month old. Another thing was that there were women recovering from childbirth who were dragged out of the house and roughed up. The really terrifying thing was that after they shot and killed these people they scattered something over them and the translation says powdered gasoline, but I think they're talking about Willie Peter Grenades, I think.

Another thing was they threw the corpses into burning haystacks. They were such terrifying things that if you believed in ghosts and demons you'd be really scared. There were dead people lying all around. Their guts strewn all over the place. Their limbs severed. Guts and things flying as high as the ceiling. It was terrifying. It was not really human. In my family at that time forty persons were killed. Total number of inhabitants in Thuy Bo killed at that time was one hundred and five persons. It was really terrifying.

I myself was in the middle portion. This horrified and scared everyone who was alive, but the Americans just carried on. They began shooting to places, the water basin nearby. They fired at us continually. I cannot tell you. I just cannot describe it. I'd gotten felled to the ground. There were a number of bodies, dead bodies piled on top of me. For that reason, I escaped death, and eventually I got out and ran away from that pile of corpses." Just, what does that say to you?

Oh, well, I say that's a dream from a little kid. If he was four years old, eleven years old, ah ya it was terrifying. It was definitely terrifying cause it was terrifying to me. As far as cutting off ears and the stomping and all that ah massive type of ah abuses towards the people there, I don't ah I really can't say. I know that the Marines went in there and we done a, we done a dog down job that third day. It was, there's nothing else that could be said. We just ah done a good job cause that's that's the only thing that's going on.

You can't, I can't evaluate on that because ah it was a daily thing. Not daily ritual to kill, but it was a daily thing to search and destroy. And, I, that's what your mission consist of. It took three days to get in that village and if there was no, if there was no VC in that village, then, then it wouldn't have been no resistance. There would never have been no casualties in that village at all if there was no VC there. And, if, if his family was that large then ah who was we fighting. His family.

I can't understand that. I don't understand ah, I don't even understand that accusation at all. I don't...if we come near, if you're coming to a, like I say a friendly village, then that's what you should get. You should get no resistance. None whatsoever. We been on ah, on ah, on ah I forget the term we used that ah when you go in the village and you aid the people you know. You give them all this first aid and stuff, and we never got no ah sniper fire. But, here is a friendly village reported with VC, well it was reported that there was VC in that area. If that village was friendly then ah we should never have had no resistance for three days.

The mass murder that this young kid said happened ah it was probably in his eyes from a kid's point of view probably did. He probably seen it that way, you know. But like I say, we done a dog down job that third day and ah it wasn't nothing unusual about burning them hootches down and digging them Vietnamese people out of them out of them holes and ah scattering animals, pigs and chickens around like we normally done. It's just a normal procedure we do. Especially after three days. Three days of blood and guts and in the in the mud. Hey. You can't take it.

You couldn't take it and ah like I said I can't account for every Marine that was there and what they done at ah at that particular time they done it because ah they felt that ah that's what they had to do. I can't account for how they acted, you know. Everybody's got their own way, but if he seen it that way ah that's the way he seen it, and the way I seen it was ah was ah it was war. It was actually war. It wasn't ah it wasn't a whole—it wasn't no friendly thing. There was nothing nice about that whole trip.

Even on their side there are, I'm sorry that the Vietnamese people got killed like it was said, but ah we lost as many people as they did. They got any casualties reports on us. You know. So, we're, I think we came out fairly even.

Do you think people don't understand what it was actually like? Is there something that you'd want to say that you haven't said so far about what it was actually like to be on those sorts of missions? Do you think it affected you or changed you in any way?

Sure it did.

Tell me.

The value of life. The value of living. The value of my life was—was on the line at—at that particular time and ah I had to—to ah dig real way down deep inside myself to find out how I was going to survive in—in this country, you know. It wasn't nothing like I could have got out of a textbook to say well if I do this right I'm guaranteed life. It wasn't something that ah you had to dig up for yourself and ah get really serious about living.

Very good. Just one more thing.

Jack, I mean I've laid sort of pretty clear to you both the allegations that Vietnamese have made and various things that have been said. Ahm. I wonder whether there's anything more that you feel that you can add about actually going into a village and doing these sort of operations and what it did to you and what you felt about doing it, or how it actually was to do it. Is there anything you want to say about it?

Well, like our normal everyday procedures were like you see it. You gotta take it back so you walk very slow. It's a lot of taking your time and being very careful. If you're in a village from the back from the side or out of a rice paddy you gotta do everything real slow, you know. You set up like a a small perimeter. If you got no incoming rounds or something like that there, then you search every hootch very slow.

You gotta be slow because they definitely set up booby traps. They set up booby traps around the village. They set up punji stakes, they set up all sorts of little devices that you would never notice they'd have snakes in their tunnels. They set up ah, they set up piles of ah buffalo droppings and stuff and you step in that boom, they'd booby trapped chairs. You can't you can't touch nothing. You can't go through a gate without ah using a grappling hook ah or just taking your grenade and rolling it up there and blowing the whole gate and making sure there's no booby traps up there because if you mess up that's it.

That's that's—that's the ball game, and ah entering a village, you have to be ah, you have to be very careful and ah you gotta—you gotta even if you a Chien Hoi with you or somebody that can interpret the Vietnamese language then ah your squad leader goes in there and he sets his men up each place where they gotta be and while they do the ah investigation and—and—and stuff like that there. But, you're on your guard all the time.

We had several incidents with like I said early, we had kids come up to us with booby trap chickens, with ah with ah crushed glass and battery acid in sodas and ah all sort of weird stuff they they'll pull on you. And, and they definitely will catch you. Even if they take one away it doesn't matter to them. So, on everyday patrol or on a on a sweep or a search and destroy mission you ah you must take your time.

What did, I mean, just tell me did you basically, how did you, did you see the kids and women as kids and women or did you see them as enemy who were quite likely...What was your, what was your attitude?

I seen them as kids and womens with ah with the attitude that that they'll get you. There was no ah...You could say you wanted to trust them but you couldn't trust them. So you was always on your guard to be alert. You wanted to be friendly because there's no there's no man that I know on this earth would just stand there point blank and shoot a little kid without no feelings, withou...or shoot a lady without no feelings.

And, ah, to get that you'd you'd have to be very careful. You wan't ah you can't turn your backs on them. They will definitely snipe you. A old man will snipe you. A young kid will snipe you. A, a the ladies, they'll snipe ya. There's noth...there was no trusting, you know. No trusting at all. You ah stayed on your guard.

Was it the sort of war you expected?

Nnno.

What was different about it?

Well, the ah, like I say...We call it searching. You gotta, weeee, yyyyou constantly had to look for them. You could never find them. We could never see them. You could, you could never put your hands on them, you know. They'd lead you into an ambush and—and all you could catch was gunfire. Twenty minutes later, you know, and ah you go in there where you got the gunfire and you might have one or two dead V—V—V—VC. But other than that, you couldn't, half the time you didn't even know who we was fighting. You couldn't see nobody.

We got caught up in the open rice paddy dike and ah I mean a rice paddy and you you'd be hung up out there unless you got lucky and called in the air strike or something like that or had your mortars with you and you drop a couple of mortal rounds seventy-nine rounds and then you'd take the hootch out, you know. Then you gotta go in there and be careful to search that hootch on the on the thing they want you to report all the dead and the wounded that you got. You'd have to go and get the dead and report 'em at that particular time and that was one of the major things we had to do. And I I it was if you was uncareful you'd you'd wind up in a plastic bag.

Okay. I've only got a couple, couple of more questions now. The, my reading of what the Vietnamese have to say and certainly the way they they speak over there is they regard this whole incident as a virtually a—a massacre of— of a village. Ah. That's how it appears in their—their history books and on their war memorials. I mean, what do you...do you have anything to add to that? Do you do you, I mean is there anything that you'd like—like to say about. I suppose really I'm not putting all my questions in together. The charges are that you and your buddies went in and—and massacred the village. I wonder whether you've got anything that you'd like to say that I haven't asked you that you'd like to add to that point.

Well, if that's, I'm going to speak in behalf of my buddies that were there and ah I'm pretty sure that the ah dead ones and the ones that are alive now will definitely agree with me. We had ah no intention to go in there with mass murder on our mind. That was definitely out of the picture because we were too young at that time to even realize how we was gonna go in there and present ourselves towards the situation so you'd never had that in mind aaabout committing mass murder, all right.

The ordeal that went down it was mass murder on our side. The, you know, like I said before. We had a lot of casualties taken, my I I felt that Vietnamese people themselves threatening my life as we was trying to pull police action and the allegations that it was mass murder...No, I definitely have to agree, disagree with that. I definitely disagree with that. And, I'm pretty sure that everybody else would say we had to do a job. It was a job that you had to do because we wasn't coming out of that village alive.

We had, (chuckle) we was there was no way. We got ran out of there. We got ran almost five miles back out of that village that they say we massacred, and if we massacred that village and there was no people left alive, then who ran us out of there? We still wondering right now who ran us out of there. We ran five miles dropping water cans and supplies, ammunition, everything that we could drop to get back out of that same village took us three days to get in so...I ah I definitely have to say no, we didn't go in there with ah with the intent of committing mass murder.

Okay. I mean I think I'm through unless there's anything that you would like to add or have to say or...Is there anything you think I haven't asked you that I shouldn't, should have asked you or that you feel hey what about this or have I been...

Ya. Well, you could sort of like...You know, like my personal feelings ah as far as going to Vietnam, I definitely wanted to go as a soldier and as a as an American citizen to ah participate and ah in my service abilities as far as joining the service, but ah I learned a lot from Vietnam myself personally about ah how the American system works out and works for disabled veterans and veterans alone that ah have suffered under this war.

I have ah stress...Ah. Personally, you know, I don't think I've ah mentally as to ah to say ahm I'm back to normal. I'm not back to normal. I'm far from being back to normal. I ah you know I still, I'm still under stress. I have a lot of stress thoughts about ah it's not over yet (chuckle) you know I was still you know they say is it a dream or is it Memorex or what, but I still in my sleep see these things going on every night. You know I ah, you know I'm still ah still a little shaky over it. I haven't begun to settle down yet. You know, it's ah, it's a bad thing that happened.

Okay. That's fine. Let's cut it there.