T. Harry Williams Center for Oral
History Collection
ABSTRACT
INTERVIEWEE NAME: Homer T. Cox #
4700.0945
IDENTIFICATION: Vietnam veteran
INTERVIEWER: Paul K. Moore
PROJECT: Americans in Vietnam
DATES: 4/5/74
FOCUS DATES: Jan. 8, 1968-Jan. 7, 1971, Aug.
30, 1969-Nov. 30, 1969
ABSTRACT:
T 1381
Born in Alexandria; father was Naval officer stationed in
Virginia and Georgia; father sent to Vietnam in 1964; Cox
finished high school in Homer, LA; father was lieutenant
commander, killed in Vietnam in 1969; mother did social work;
after one year of college, recruited into Army at age 19;
enlisted for three years with airborne infantry; basic training
at Fort Polk; Infantry AIT at Fort Gordon, GA; jump school at
Fort Benning; accepted into Special Forces; West Point prep
school run by Army at Fort Fellboard, Virginia; training was
Vietnam specific; first day of basic training; attended West
Point prep school for a year but didn't make it into West Point;
Cox's attitude toward military; Cox isn't anti-military; opted
for Vietnam so he'd get an early out and could return to college;
flew to Vietnam on TWA; arrival in Vietnam; peculiar smell in
air; Pacification program; booby traps; constant tension;
fighting Vietnamese; expense of war; spent 14 months in hospital;
fighting VC in She Ranh Valley; badly wounded by booby trap or
grenade; wounds of comrades; hospitals at Cam Ranh Bay and Tokyo;
Cox was only person on his ward with two arms and two legs; care
of guys who lost limbs; Red Cross flew dying man's wife over,
miraculous recovery; Cox became bitter; disfigured people in
plastic surgery ward; Cox had shrapnel wounds in face, back and
arms; gets 40% disability now; Cox received excellent medical
care; comparisons to TV show MASH; US should not have been in
Vietnam; stayed in hospital three months longer than necessary
because he didn't want to leave; evaded returning to duty; stayed
in on provisional P34 status; sent to Frot Benning, GA, to
process 197th infantry brigade; trouble guys had
readjusting to US after Vietnam; difference of clean-cut
stateside Army and reality of Vietnam; after discharge, worked
offshore as roughneck to save money for school; volunteering to
be medical test subject to avoid regular duty; medical test at
Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, home of Army's Chemical Gas Warfare;
psychological tests Army ran there; riot gas experiment; tour of
nerve gas experiment facilities; anti-war demonstration in July
1970 outside Gaseous Warfare Center; attending anti-war meeting
near base; simultaneously guarding against VC and thieving South
Vietnamese; low opinion of Vietnamese; father got out of service
but stayed in Vietnam to form contracting company; father killed
as civilian in Vietnam; booby traps made of C-Ration cans;
hutches made from ammunition boxes; Cox's father set up first
R&R program in Vietnam in 1965; Cox, his father and his uncle
all were in Vietnam simultaneously; father was building water
purification plants in outlying villages; believe the VC killed
his father, set it up to look like accident; Vietnamese couldn't
appreciate democracy; spent most of his time in field; people hid
their emotions, pretended Vietnam didn't get to them; idiot who
wanted to bring a Vietnamese woman home to US; Cox never went
with a prostitute, but dreamt of meeting woman during R&R in
Australia; prevalence of drugs; guy court-martialed for raping
Vietnamese woman; drugs hidden in cigarette packs; Cox didn't
smoke much marijuana because of his hay fever; wasteful ways in
Army; Army officers weren't thrilled to be in Vietnam; comparing
waste in military to waste in big corporations; US Army was
efficient compared to other armies; racial conflict at Fort
Benning; racial trouble mostly in rear, not in field; no racial
trouble in hospital.
TAPES: 1
TOTAL PLAYING TIME:
# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 25
RESTRICTIONS: none