Owlsey, Lloyd R.
Lloyd R. Owsley: Vietnam War
Interviewed by Robin F. M. Hannah
Interview date February 5, 2004
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born in Maryland in the mid-1940s.
Q: How old were you and what were you doing when the United States began getting heavily involved in the Vietnam War in the 1960s?
A: I was probably about 15 or 16.
Q: And where were you?
A: Oh, I was in high school.
Q: How did your friends and you feel about the war? That is, were you heavily in favor for it or against it?
A: Ah, at that age, we really didn’t think about the war. Are you talking about that time period?
Q: At that time period in the 60s.
A: At that time we gave no thought to the war, being in high school.
Q: What year did you enter the military?
A: 1965.
Q: OK, now did you enlist in the military or were you drafted?
A: No, I enlisted in the military.
Q: What is something that made you nervous or something that you believed in to be part of your duty as an American citizen?
A: You want to repeat that again?
Q: Was it something that made you nervous – about going into the military – or was it something that you felt like was your duty as an American citizen.
A: Oh, ah, I didn’t want to be drafted (laughing).
Q: What branch of the military did you serve?
A: United States Air Force.
Q: Where did you undergo basic training?
A: Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
Q: Did you and the rest of the men know that you were going to be sent to Vietnam?
A: Ah, we knew that there was a possibility that we would be sent.
Q: What military rank were you when you arrived in Vietnam?
A: I was a sergeant.
Q: What were your overall impressions when you first arrived in Vietnam?
A: When I first arrived in Vietnam, just observing the landscape and the busyness of processing in and checking out the equipment. Of course, about an hour after that, it was about saving my life because we were getting fired on as we were trying to take off to go to another base.
Q: Wow. Where were you stationed in Vietnam and it what capacity did you serve?
A: I was stationed at Phan Rang Air Base and, ah, my, ah, duty specialty was a maintenance supply scheduler.
Q: OK. In terms of your own experience, what kind of conditions did you live and work in? Something about food and clothing. . .
A: Ah, yeah, the conditions were tolerable. They weren’t very bad, but they weren’t very good either. It was dirty and dusty. A lot of bugs and – it was livable. The food was from bad to fair. (laughs) But I managed to . . .
Q: Did you have to wear the same kind of clothing they have to wear now with all that junk they have to wear. . .
A: Yeah, military jungle fatigues everyday.
Q: What kind of contact did you have with other people back home?
A: Ah, sent letters, you know, home. Got letters, you know, quite frequent. And, maybe about two or three times a month I was able to call home over a MARS station or MARS line.
Q: Did they ever permit you to give any kind of information detail, like as to where you were over in Vietnam?
A: No.
Q: You know, the exact point. . .
A: No, didn’t give any information about what I was doing or just where I was stationed.
Q: Do you feel comfortable about talking about combat?
A: Yeah.
Q: Describe your combat experience to me.
A: I wasn’t in combat, I was in a support role. So I wasn’t out there in the field on a fire fight or anything.
Q: Well, that was good.
A: Yeah, that was very good!
Q: What was your most memorable experience in Vietnam, combat or otherwise?
A: Ah, probably my most memorable was probably about, ah, about two weeks before leaving Vietnam. And it was always said that usually your last couple of weeks are probably your most sensitive weeks because you’re at a higher risk that, you know, you may not get out of there. . .
Q: Go home. . .
A: . . .and, of course, ah, along about my last two weeks there was a situation that came up. Ah, I had, ah, kind of a habit everyday of going to get my mail at the same time, ah, and so, I would normally go to the mail room to pick up my mail at 4:00, and also at 4:00 the end-of-duty-day siren would sound. Where on this particular day I got busy working with another air craft and was not able to leave at that time, and, ah right at 4:00 when that siren went off we got attacked. And so, there was confusion about, you know, was it an attack siren or was it end-of-duty-day siren. . .
Q: Oh, OK.
A: And, of course, it was by the grace of God that I was not there because part of the mailroom was blown up along with some administrative offices, and there was a security police commando squad in right next door to the mailroom and that’s what they were trying to hit. . .
Q: Wow, and they hit the mailroom.
A: And they blew that up, yeah. And several people were killed.
Q: So, now has this experience impacted your life?
A: (laughing)
Q: By the grace of God you was able to see the rest of your life!
A: Yeah, yeah. Ah, I would say, ah, Vietnam was, ah, an experience. It did change my life psychologically. Ah, I didn’t go back home the same way I left. And, ah, it brought, ah, ah, some psychological changes in my life. Ah, some instability, ah, that I just didn’t feel secure, ah, and, ah, there were some things that I had to work out and still deal with from time to time.
Q: I have one of my friends, his uncle is like that. He still looks for the “gooks” in the trees, you know.
A: Yeah.
Q: Especially here in Oklahoma with all these trees lining the roads and he’s almost underneath the car seat, you know, “watch the gooks, watch the gooks.”
A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I’m not looking for “gooks,” but I’m very security conscious, especially if I’m in an area or . . .
Q: OK, this is kind of a lengthy question. Given the fact that historically race relations in this country have been strained to say the least and in the 1960s and early 1970s tensions between blacks and whites in the United States were running high, how was your experience as an African-American man defined or shaped by your time in Vietnam, and what were the relations like between blacks and whites in Vietnam at that time?
A: Ah, probably, ah, at that time, somewhat just like it was in the states, ah, if you were stationed back in the states, you kind of, ah, tolerated one another. There were always some incidents of, ah . . .
Q: Really?
A: . . . racial prejudice, ah, within my own unit we worked together to get the mission done, ah, but you could feel the tension, yeah.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: The brothers, you know, stayed with the brothers, you know. . .
Q: Yeah.
A: . . . and, ah, you know, white folks stayed with the white folks. And every now and then, you know, you would see them mingle, but there wasn’t a lot of that.
Q: OK.
A: It was kind of tense in some situations.
Q: How long did you serve in Vietnam?
A: Ah, 13 months.
Q: After serving in Vietnam, where did the military send you or were you immediately discharged?
A: Ah, no, I was sent to, ah, to Germany after I left Vietnam.
Q: Wow! So you still didn’t come home after leaving Vietnam.
A: No, I was on my second re-enlistment.
Q: Wow.
A: And so when I went to Vietnam, I had just re-enlisted.
Q: Oh, OK. OK. What kind of reception did you receive when you got back home from strangers you encountered when they found out you were in Vietnam?
A: Ah, ah, usually it was – it was kind of cold, I mean, it just wasn’t talked about, ah, you know. Someone would ask you, you know, if you were in Vietnam or if you told someone that you were in Vietnam, and, you know, it was, they would say, “oh, yeah?” or they may ask you “how did you like it?” or something like that, but, ah, never any, any detail. It just wasn’t talked about.
Q: How about your feelings toward the anti-war protestors in this country?
A: Ah, anti-war protestors?
Q: Wasn’t there a big thing going on with protesting against Vietnam?
A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of protesting.
Q: I was only 11.
A: Ah, you know, it didn’t bother me that much, you know, I kind of thought of them, you know, that if anybody was communist or anti-American, it was them. But that didn’t, didn’t bother me so much because when I got back home, you know, I had to come back fighting the same war that I left and that was one of racism and discrimination, you know, even while I was in the military during that time, so I wasn’t caught up with the anti-war protestors, probably more the Civil Rights Movement then, but not anti-war.
Q: How did your family and friends react to you when you got back from Vietnam?
A: Well, they were glad to see me. You know, glad that I made it back, but we didn’t talk about it.
Q: OK, they weren’t even curious or anything like that?
A: No, no questions asked.
Q: Oh, well, that’s good, too. If indeed, you experienced some kind of physical or psychological wound or wounds during your time in combat, how did those physical or mental wounds affect your relations and interactions with family, friends, spouse. . . in other words. . .
A: Well, I wasn’t in combat, but just. . .
Q: The psychological aspect?
A: Yeah, yeah, just the psychological aspect of being there, being attacked everyday, no knowing if you were going to make it through the night, ah, ah, or whether you were going to make it, you know, through that day, because you were always, you know, on your guard, you know, looking out and so it was just the overall psychological affect of, ah, of being there. . .
Q: It didn’t make it hard for you to communicate with your family or anything when you came back?
A: No, no it didn’t make it hard to communicate, no.
Q: Do you still keep in touch with any of the men with whom you served?
A: No.
Q: Don’t even know where they are, do you?
A: I can’t remember a lot of them. Maybe one or two, ah, and that’s something I’ve been dealing with. A mental block, ah, that I have from Vietnam. There are some things that I just can’t remember. And so, ah, I tried looking for some friends – some people that I knew while I was there, you know, like going on the internet and all that. . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: . . . but, ah, there’s a lot of them I, you know, I can’t remember.
Q: In a way, that’s good!
A: Good, yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Q: That might be good. What kind of general observations and conclusions do you have about the Vietnam War and your Vietnam War experience?
A: Well, I can only say that, ah, I did what I thought I was supposed to do at the time that I was called to do it, you know, that’s what I, you know, had pretty much signed up for, ah, with the military, and so I kind of knew what to expect, though I hadn’t planned on Vietnam. That came as a surprise. But, ah, since I was in the military and, ah, you know, I knew that was part of it if it had to be, and so, ah, as an American, you know, I just took that job on and just looked at it as an experience.
Q: That is the end of our interview! Thank you very much.
