00-10min: Introduction; OCS; length of deployment 11 months starting October 1967; Army Signal Corps; Stationed in the mountains near Bao Loc in the central highlands of Vietnam; 362 Signal Company; long range communications; traveled all over the country; responsible for maintaining communication systems; Vietnamese troops used as military support; lots of interaction between Vietnamese; Bao Loc 180 miles north of Siagon directly inland from Cam Ranh; Enabled long range communication necessary; signal outposts were set up on mountains; needed to be defended; was there any press presence, one person; battle of Khe Sanh; Communications GIs get no USO; rotten job; Coverage doesn't reflect what is really happening;
11-20min: Tet offensive was painted by the press as being worse than it was; Censorship necessary in wartime; 2 GIs arrested for being critical of the military censoring too much news; Everything is censored; No censorship of the Kennedy assassination and riots; On top of a mountain asked to fire mortars; misfire blew up mess hall; the story was clamped down; not against clamping down on the story; My Lai Massacre; never heard of any massacres; not shocked that civilians were killed; Why did the whistle blower wait so long?; Who are the enemy?
21-30min: People get killed; Civilian casualties necessary; never heard of massacres first hand; morale level of Vietnam soldier high; Wanted to be there; Most American soldiers wonder "why me?"; They do their job; They know the military is a necessary evil; I don't think we should have been there in the first place; how do we get out; I went over because friends got killed; I knew my job; I didn't like being there; Didn't effect morale; Missed being home; How do we get out; Anti war is a good movement; I'm not in favor of moratoriums; Action in May of 1968; Interrogation of prisoners revealed that North Vietnamese believed that anti-war protesters were going to overthrow the US Government;
31-40min: Prisoner wouldn't be fighting if he didn't believe in the rise of the anti-war movement in the US; North Vietnamese soldier was 27; There are good points to the Moratoriums; One point of violence created propaganda; American soldier does his job; Small minority are anti-war?; Can US democracy work in South Vietnam - more so now than in 1967; Vietnam is a new country controlled by a number of countries; It will take time for Vietnam to become Vietnam; French influenced elite pushing for democracy; The government in Vietnam was trying to reach out to the people more; Vietnamesezation should have been done 10 years ago; Vietnamese soldier has improved; Some officers good; Nepotism big issue; Older soldiers corrupt; Good young soldiers; Corruption;
41-50min: Americanizing Vietnam?; Robbing its identity, no; Tokyo is New York; Nixon administration Vietnam policy; Nixon has the right policy; Johnston's policy flawed; Kennedy said it was Vietnam's war; How to pull out troops; Pull out slowly; We will be there a long time; 3 to 4 years to pull out; Win that war for us but put too many limits on soldiers; We should invade North Vietnam; China wouldn't fight us; Politics of limited war; Vietnamese view a single country; Ho Chi Minh; Civilian told of confusion about being shot at by VC;
51-60min: Tet created a change in Vietnam; American soldiers now good at guerrilla combat; Take the strings off and we would win; They lost Tet; Communism in North Vietnam unknown quantity; if they want Communism, they can have it; Some Buddhist prejudice and tension with Catholics; North Vietnam is Catholic; Prejudice is a funny thing; Not a military man; Offered to stay in Army; Coming home; Wanted to teach; GIs do a lot of work teaching; Wanted to go to school; Happy to come home; Junior at WCSC and signed up at Vietnam; Sorry I didn't go right after high school; World is different from WCSC. END
