T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection
ABSTRACT
INTERVIEWEE NAME: Art Bergeron #4700.0935
IDENTIFICATION: Vietnam veteran
INTERVIEWER: Paul Moore
PROJECT: Americans in Vietnam
DATES: Feb 23, 1974 FOCUS DATES: February 1969-January 1971,
July 1969-July 1970
ABSTRACT:
T 1361
growing up in Alexandria and Lecompte; sugar cane in Lecompte area; education at LSU
Alexandria, PhD program at LSU; getting drafted while in grad school; training at Fort Polk; first
duty was cleaning pots and pans; shocked when drafted, didn't expect it so soon; unsure whether he
would be sent to Vietnam or to Korea; Vietnamese style village set up at Fort Polk for training
purposes; sent to Vietnam, assigned to 4th Division; he was one of 5 out of 200 soldiers who were
made clerks instead of infantry; orientation at Cam Ranh Bay; duties as clerk; helped start Civic
Action Newletter; Kit Carson Scouts, former NVA and VC soldiers who worked for Americans;
propaganda operations; transferred to a mechanized infantry battalion because the NCO didn't like
him; moved to An Khe; personality problems with NCO; almost got put into infantry after six
months as a clerk; NCOs getting people transferred without their knowledge; contact with
Vietnamese civilians while on K.P. duty; Vietnamese prejudice against black soldiers;
accommodations in barracks south of Pleiku City; showers; supply of books to read in Vietnam, base
libraries; types of books available; went to Vietnam as newlywed, frequent correspondence with wife
and parents; movies and radio; bars on base with entertainment by Vietnamese bands; abominable
housing and living conditions of Vietnamese civilians in Pleiku; montagnard villages; workers
pilfering fruit on K.P. duty; marijuana use in the mechanized battalion; prostitution in Pleiku;
availability of wares in PX; discounted merchandise at the PX; rockets fired into their camp at
Pleiku; satchel charges (bags full of explosives) thrown into camp; being sent out on base camp
patrols with people who weren't adequately trained for combat; duties as correspondence clerk at
An Khe; his efforts to get a presidential unit citation for his battalion; access to top secret documents;
procedures for body counts; people who headed propaganda organizations and projects; propanda
leaflets dropped from planes; readjusting to the US; student protests in US against war in Vietnam;
ambivalence over whether US involvement was justified; attitudes of Vietnamese toward US
soldiers; inefficiency of Army; not interested in returning to visit Vietnam; concern regarding fate
of montagnards; oppression of montagnards by South Vietnamese; experiments with rice to improve
yield; volunteering for civil affairs duty;
TAPES: 1 TOTAL PLAYING TIME: one hour
# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 30
RESTRICTIONS: copyright retained by interviewer and/or his heirs