Vietnam War Interview Forum

Guest

>1. What is your name, rank, and where and when did you serve in Vietnam?

Dave Wright, Sergeant, served between 11/68 - 11/69.

>2. What was a typical day like in Vietnam?

For a point man in a combat infantry unit, every day was filled with fear.  I lead the column about every third day and it terrified me.

>3. How did you become enlisted? and what were your views of the war at that time?

The draft was going to pick me up shortly so I volunteered to be drafted early, I wanted to get it over with.

>4. What were your jobs in Vietnam? How did these affect you during and after the war?

My job was to try to stay alive and see danger before we walked into it.  I failed one time and it cost my entire squad and half our company became casualties.  It hit me real hard.  I kept walking point because I didn't want a new replacement to go through what I did.  

>5. Did the war change the plans you had set out for yourself before the war? and how?

No, I married my fiancee, finished college, got a good job, built a new home and went to church every week.  I tried my hardest to live as if the war handn't happened.  It all felt shallow and empty somehow - that was part of PTSD.

>6. What is your scariest experience from Vietnam and explain it?

I was no John Wayne, God interviened several times to save my life.  Each was scary.  If you're really interested in what it was like, my wife encouraged me to write my stories because I couldn't verbalize them.  There were published under the title, "Not Enough Tears."

>7. What was it like to be in a group with other men in the war? How did you treat each other, and how did you work together?

We bonded together in ways that cna't happen outside of war.  We laughed and cried, lived and died together 24/7 for months at a time.

>8. What was it like after you came back from the war? How were you treated and how did you feel?

I tried to forget all the experiences in Vietnam and get on with "normal" life again.  That's what most people expected and what I desperately wanted also.  

I ignored the protestors and wrote them off as uninformed, nieve idiots who were being used by those who wanted to hurt our country.  WWII vets mumbled that we didn't fight hard enough and lost America's first war.  Our politicians ran in every direction trying to escape any blame for the war.  Most people never noticed I was gone.  Life went on for them as if the war wasn't happening.

>9. When you think about the war today, what do you think about the most?

All the horror drove me to a relationship with Jesus Christ like nothing else could have.  I hope it doesn't take that kind of trauma for you.

>10. How has the Vietnam war changed you life and the way you view things today such as politics, the economy, and our current wars?

Too big a question, get the book.