Oral History

Mark A. Smith: Vietnam War

Interviewed by David D. L. Colbert (student)

Interview date April 16, 2004

Abstract

Mark A. Smith served in the United States Army and began his duty in the Vietnam War in 1969. He discusses his own life experiences while fighting in the war and enlightens us about some of the conflicts that he faced while fighting the war. Mr. Smith recalls some of the memorable aspects of the war, but still elaborates on the main issues that were and still are debated regarding this conflict. His view points are that of a soldier, so we who did not participate in the war get recollections of what it would have been like to be in the war. Mr. Smith risked his own life to do what he thought was morally correct. Although he came back to his family in one piece, his memories are irreplaceable, especially for those of us who are intrigued to know what happened in one of the greatest battles to ever be sketched down in US history.

Q:        When and where were you born?

A:        I was born in Holdenville, Oklahoma in 1948.

Q:        How old were you and what were you doing when the United States began getting more heavily involved in Vietnam in the early 1960s?

A:        In the early 60s I was in junior high and high school – I was in my teens.

Q:        How did your friends and you feel about the war; that is, were you heavily in favor of it or were you opposed to it?

A:        Oh, I’m from a small town and there was a tendency for patriotism and, ah, I think pretty generally, as a general thing, most of us all were in favor of the war and what we were doing. Individually, I think we didn’t much want to go to it, but we were – as our country, we were in favor of it.

Q:        What year did you enter the war?

A:        1969.

Q:        In what branch of the military did you serve?

A:        The United States Army.

Q:        Where did you undergo basic training?

A:        At Fort Polk, Louisiana.

Q:        Did you and the rest of your men know that you were going to be sent to Vietnam?

A:        Yes. After basic training I was sent to a leadership preparation course and we were told there before we went on to infantry AIT, we were told absolutely that our whole battalion was going to Vietnam. 

Q:        What military rank were you when you arrived in Vietnam?

A:        I was a PFC [private first class].

Q:        What were your overall impressions when you first arrived in Vietnam? How did you feel? What was the general feeling among other soldiers and such? Please feel free to elaborate about these feelings and first impressions.

A:        Well, the first impressions as I got off the plane was “where’s my rifle?” Because they didn’t give us one right away and we were, as far as I was concerned we were in a combat zone, and, ah, the next impression was the heat and the smell. You know, it’s just, I can tell you if you’ve never smelled the jungle and jungle rot and stuff like that before, when you step off the plane it just – it’s, ah – it hits you pretty quick and this place doesn’t smell nice! And we weren’t really in the jungle there or really that close to it. It’s just the smell that we got. And it’s the smell that you got used to later on, ah, but it was a little strange when you first get off that plane. 

            I think everybody around me was wondering the same thing I was, you know:  what are they going to have us doing, where do we go from here, ah, and the fact that we know there’s a war going on and here we are – and we knew we were in a United States base camp, you might call it – a facility – but we had not been issued arms and they didn’t seem to be inclined to give them to us, either, at that point. So that – that was a little disconcerting. But, ah, but we really didn’t hear much of any sounds of war. There was a few explosions off in the distance at night and that was about all.

Q:        Where were you stationed in Vietnam and in what capacity did you serve?

A:        I was, ah, stationed in the, ah, in I Corps, which was in the northern highlands in the mountains. I was, ah, with the 101st Airborne Division, and I was an infantry soldier. 

Q:        In terms of your own experience, what kind of conditions did you live in and work in. Please elaborate about food, clothing, shelter, etc. and so forth.

A:        Well, at first, whenever I joined my unit, ah, out in the field, ah, you lived with whatever you carried on your back. You carried your water, your food, even your shelter. It was very primitive. It’s not any different than any other infantry soldier’s ever – any other infantryman has ever, ah, lived under. It’s pretty barbaric, if you really want to say. But it’s amazing what, ah, somebody can get used to in a relatively short period of time. We slept on the ground. We slept – we picked everything up and moved each day. We, ah, ah, we were looking for the enemy, you know. We were patrolling our AO, which is Area of Operation, and, ah, we just, day in and day out – that’s what it was. I carried a shelter half and at night, ah, I would get together with several other guys that had shelter halves and we would create what we called a fighting position where we were going to fight from if we were attacked. And we’d put up those shelter halves – take sticks and stuff and just kind of lay them across there so that if it rained at night, at least it didn’t rain on our face, you know, it rained everywhere else – we just laid in the rain, but it didn’t rain on our face. 

Q:        What kind of contact did you have with people back home? What kind of correspondence did the military permit?

A:        Well, we wrote letters. That was it. Just US mail. They picked them up. Helicopters that brought us re-supply would pick up our mail and bring us new mail. 

Q:        If you feel comfortable talking about combat, please describe the combat experience you had, if any.

A:        Well, I talk too much about it. I’ve talked a little about it from time to time, but, ah, the best way to describe combat is, you know, or the whole experience, really, is we had long stretches of sheer boredom punctuated by really short stretches of sheer fright, you might say. Ah, amazingly enough, I’d always heard the story from other veterans from World War II that when the bullets start flying, that your training kicks in. And, and, ‘though I didn’t – I don’t think I believed it when I went over there, after I happened I believed it. Your training does kick in. You don’t really – really realize you’ve been through a fight until after it’s over.

Q:        What was the most memorable experience in Vietnam, combat or otherwise?

A:        Most memorable? Huh. Oh, I try not to remember the combat, so that’s – that can’t really qualify as the memorable part. I think, I think there are several most memorable parts. I, ah, remember going into villages and helping the local people in learning how to, hopefully, protect themselves. I remember, ah, a place called Eagle Beach where I spent time, like on a mini R&R [rest and recreation]. And, ah, went into Saigon once. I remember the sights and the smells of Saigon at the height of the war. Those kind of things. I think probably the most memorable time was when I left on R&R and went to Hawaii. I met my wife – that’s probably – I remember that more than anything else.

Q:        How has the experience affected your life?

A:        Well, like anybody else, after I got back, you know, you have to deal with the – with the survivor’s guilt. You have to, ah, you have to deal with the fact of “why did I live and other guys die?” That’s – that’s maybe one of the harder parts. I’ve always been able to kind of push things aside, so I do forget pretty easily, but, ah, ah, I don’t really forget, but mostly I just remember those things – I remember the guys I was there with, ah, and I remember some of the experiences. They weren’t all negative. It never is completely negative. Ah, and so, you know, I try to focus on the positive things. I didn’t spend all my time in the field. I – later in my tour, I, ah, I worked on a what we call a fire base. It was an artillery base and I worked in a battalion operations center. And I got away from walking around in the jungle with that pack on my back. So, ah, so I remember some stuff up there that was, actually, pretty enjoyable. 

Q:        How long did you serve in Vietnam?

A:        I was there 11 months.

Q:        After serving in Vietnam, where did the military send you, or were you immediately discharged?

A:        Well, the sent me back to Fort Polk, Louisiana. I spent my last 6 months in the army down there.

Q:        What kind of reception did you receive when you got home from the strangers you encountered when they found out that you were a Vietnam Vet? What were your feelings about the anti-war protest in this country?

A:        Well, the – the – I didn’t actually have anybody accost me, call me a baby-killer, or any of those other things. I really don’t know how I would have reacted had I – had I been approached like that. Ah, but then I came back into the United States through an area that was a major, ah, transfer point. It was in Seattle, Washington. The stewardesses on the airplane when I was going home, they treated us great, you know. The two drink minimum was off for anybody coming back from Vietnam. And – I’m sorry, two drink maximum I should have said – was off for anybody coming back from Vietnam. And, ah, and they treated us pretty good. Most of the people, you know, they can tell by the ribbons your uniform, they pretty much just ignored you. They didn’t know how to react. Now, again, because I’m from a small town and, and small towns are kind of different from large metropolitan areas – my reception when I got to my hometown was much warmer and much better than it was, ah, from, you know, from anywhere in any major metropolitan area. Ah, as a matter of fact, the night I went down to visit my parents after I got back, ah, they told friends, who one friend happened to be an announcer at the local high school football games and I went to the game with my parents and he announced it over the PA [public address] system that I was back. Told the whole town that I was back, so everybody came up and shook my hand, you know. Made me feel pretty good. It was probably the only positive reception I had outside of Fort Polk, of course. The other vets in Fort Polk, the other, ah, people in the army at Fort Polk, they knew where I’d been, what I’d done. Most of them had been there, too. And it was kind of – we all knew what we all felt. 

Q:        How did you family and friends react to you when you got back from Vietnam? Were they unsympathetic, sympathetic, curious, not curious? Please elaborate on these issues.

A:        Oh, mostly they were curious. You know, nobody’s ever been there – anybody that’s never been really kind of would like to know about war, but they – they really don’t want to ask, you know, because they don’t want to make you feel bad, either. So, nobody – it was really kind of strange because nobody really wanted to ask me. Until I kind of voluntarily talked a little bit about it, everybody was kind like walking on egg shells. But once I did say something, then, then they started asking me a lot of questions. You know, I was pretty warmly received, again, by family and friends. Ah, strangers would just leave me alone. I mean, ah, you know, we didn’t go around town wearing a uniform. So people didn’t necessarily know I’d just gotten back. Ah, you know, a stranger on the street wouldn’t know that I was in the service. Ah, the anti-war protests that went on across the country, I thought pretty negatively about them then and I still think pretty negatively about them now. Ah, ah, you know, I just – they just didn’t feel the same way I did, you know, about, about – you know, I didn’t think – about the country and about anything else. Ah, ah, I, you know, I just thought it could have been done a different way. I, ah, shoot, I was over there defending their right to, to, to protest, you know, but I thought they took it to extremes.

Q:        If indeed, you experienced some kind of physical or psychological wound or wounds in your time in combat, how did those physical and mental wounds affect your relations and interactions with family, friends, spouse, or girlfriend?

A:        Oh, I think, I didn’t get a scratch over there, outside of, you know, normal, you know, insect bites and boils on the back of your neck from rucksacks rubbing on your neck, from – you know, I never got shot. I didn’t get any, you know, never got hurt at all. Ah, saw plenty of guys who did, but I didn’t – I was lucky. It’s one of those things, you kind of look at it and say “OK, what’s God got planned for me now?” Because obviously nothing was supposed to happen to me there. Ah, my relationships have actually – my first marriage fell apart later on, but I don’t know that it had anything to do with my service, other than the fact that it was kind of hard for us to establish a life together because I was gone, you know. They – the – our relationship – I don’t know. It’s hard for me to tell – from the inside out it’s hard to tell how it’s affecting your relationships. It usually takes somebody on the outside looking in to say, “you know, you’re different than you were when you left.” I know that, ah, when I left to go over there I had the same feeling that everybody else did, you know, that every other teenager has, you know, I turned twenty-one on my way over there. It was my birthday on the plane. Turned twenty-one, and then I landed in Vietnam. But, I don’t know that I felt any different than any other young man, and that is that you’re invincible. That, that nothing is really going to happen to you. Ah, but I came back with a sense of, ah, that something could happen. That, ah, we can die young. That we can die, ah, with a life unfulfilled. And that’s pretty sobering, you know. Sometimes they call it growing up, you know. Ah, but I – those are the things I remember. I was different when I came back. I knew that I was mortal. And, that’s probably the biggest change I can think of. 

Q:        Do you still keep in contact with any of the men whom you served with?

A:        You know, that’s really funny, because, no, I don’t. I don’t even know where any of them are. Some of them are from Oklahoma. As a matter of fact, one guy I was drafted with and trained with, ah, all the way through training, and he ended up in a different outfit in Vietnam – he ended up in the 1st Cav and I ended up in the 101st Airborne. And, ah, I lost track of him, and I asked around about him because his home town is only eight miles from my home town. And I asked around, ah, ah, about him, and found out that he had made it back, but I never did make it a point to look him up. And, and, ah, then when the Murrah bombing happened, ah, and I’m watching all of that, I thought I heard them mention his name, and sure, enough, he was the last body pulled out of the rubble. He died when the – the – McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building. He was working as an accountant down there. And I didn’t know. I didn’t even know he was in Oklahoma City. I wished I had – wished I’d made a point to find him, but I didn’t, and, and I still haven’t really seen or talked to anybody that I served with. 

Q:        Did you enlist in the military or were you drafted?

A:        I was drafted. 

Q:        If you were drafted, how did you feel about that? Was it something that made you nervous or something that you believed to be part of your duty as an American citizen?

A:        Both. It makes you nervous because you really don’t know what’s going to happen next. Ah, most of us feel like that we’ve got some control in our life. Ah, there is nothing like that letter – you know, it doesn’t happen now to anybody. There’s nothing like getting that letter and it says, you know, “Greetings,” or “Hello” or in my case it just said “You’ve been drafted. Report at such and such time.” Because all of a sudden, you’ve just lost control. You may think you’re in control, you may think you have a choice, but you don’t, you know. You’ve got one of two choices, you know, report or, you know, report or don’t. And, ah, but then again, one of the reasons I reported was, you know, freedom doesn’t come free, ah, no matter where you’re having to win it at, somebody’s got to fight, somebody’s got to die for those of us that are free. And, ah, I thought it was my responsibility to answer that draft call because that’s what my country was asking me to do. The country may have been right, it may have been wrong, ah, but the only right answer for me was to go. 

Q:        What kind of general observations and conclusions do you have about the Vietnam War and your Vietnam experience?

A:        I think a lot of mistakes were made in the Vietnam War. I don’t think participation in it was a mistake. Ah, I didn’t think it was a mistake then. I still don’t think it was a mistake now. I think the way the war was fought was a mistake. You never, in my estimation, should go to war and not let the warriors fight. If you’re going to go to war, then the only way to fight a war is all out until it’s over with. You can’t fight limited wars. You can’t say, “I only want you to attack in this direction, no matter what happens in this other direction.” You can’t tie your military’s hands. You can only give them the mission to accomplish and then let them accomplish it. That was a mistake. Going there probably was not. Ah, there was a 50-year war, some of it hot, some of it cold, to win the Cold War, to defeat communism as we saw it, ah, we just decided that was one of the fronts we were going to meet it on. And let me tell you, I saw Vietnam. Bombed out, shelled out, burnt down. It was – war is not a nice thing. And I’m – give me a choice – if the war has to be fought – give me a choice whether to fight it in somebody else’s country and devastate it there or fight it here and burn down half of America, I’ll go fight it over there. Ah, because, because they were in terrible shape when we left. Ah, it just – you can’t imagine what modern warfare does. You watch it on TV today and you see the precision they’ve got with the bombing, but that building still disappears in an explosion. It’s nothing but a burned out wreck of a place. How would downtown Oklahoma City look if the same thing – bombs were falling here? Given a choice, I’ll always go fight it over there. And, missions have changed – things have changed in the military today, but that, you know, hopefully, we’ll never see a world war again. Ah, hopefully, we’ll never see another Vietnam, and extended war. But, ah, we’re going to see other wars from time to time, and, ah, I don’t . . .(tape abruptly ended)