T. Harry Williams Center for Oral
History Collection
ABSTRACT
INTERVIEWEE NAME: Philip X. Brady #
4700.0939
IDENTIFICATION: Vietnam veteran
INTERVIEWER: Richard W. Koffman
PROJECT: Americans in Southeast Asia
DATES: 2/5/74
FOCUS DATES: August, 1965 - June, 1969; May,
1967-Feb, 1968
ABSTRACT:
T 1370, 1371
Enlisting in the Navy to get off the streets; learned riverboat
navigation during military training; Navy training in communist
ideology; basic training; finding their way with compasses during
survival training; beating soldiers in simulated POW camp;
psyching soldiers into wanting to kill Viet Cong; working
riverboat duty in Vietnam; firing on wrong villages, killing
civilians then denying it; Cambodian border; shooting and being
shot at made him feel like he was accomplishing something in life
for the first time ever; sneaky attacks of the Viet Cong; Tet
Offensive; very gung ho, wanted to stay over there; fighting
between black and white soldiers; putting loaded guns to
Vietnamese girls' heads just to scare them; soldiers bathing
naked in front of the villagers; "a gook was a gook";
passing out drunk while on duty; lack of discipline; Viet Cong
indistinguishable from South Vietnamese; Navy Seals; Navy
torturing prisoners; Green Berets as professional soldiers who
didn't want the war to end; feeling of power that comes with
shooting guns; getting a hero's welcome when returning to US in
1968; being proud while at war, then bothered when he came home
and read about what he was fighting for; US picked the wrong
strategy; getting rides with strangers in helicopters; stealing
beer from the Army; drank a lot but few drugs; friends who would
have been better off being shot in Vietnam than coming home crazy
and strung out; might have done more drugs in Vietnam if he'd
been more aware of their effects; types of boats used; working in
five-man crews; transporting the Army on their ships; fondness
for the 30 caliber machine gun; most of his unit was high school
drop outs who shot at water buffalo and houses for kicks; living
on barracks ships; running into sampans and fish traps at night;
Chinese rocket hitting the Tan Son Nhut airport; mouse biting
soldier; had a Vietnamese girlfriend; kids getting blown up by
stepping on mines; VC cutting off hands of orphaned children.
TAPES: 2
TOTAL PLAYING TIME:
# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 19
RESTRICTIONS: none