T. Harry Williams Center for Oral
History Collection
ABSTRACT
INTERVIEWEE NAME: Charles E. Edwards, Jr. #
4700.0949
IDENTIFICATION: Vietnam veteran
INTERVIEWER: Dudley R. Meier, Jr.
PROJECT: Americans in Vietnam
DATES: 5/1/75
FOCUS DATES: Feb. 26, 1968-Jan. 21, 1970,
Oct. 1968 - Nov. 1968
ABSTRACT:
T 1387
Father was an ex Marine; dropped out of school in 1967,
entered Marines in 1968; trained in California, left for Vietnam
in November; twelve weeks of boot camp; weight loss after joining
Marines; Marine training, emphasis on discipline; enjoyed
organization and orderliness of boot camp; advanced infantry at
Camp Pendleton; staging; training was totally Vietnam-oriented;
can't imagine being in service at a time when country not at war;
stereotype of Viet Cong, fake villages for training purposes;
questions realism of villages; during training, shocking to
remember that they were really going to kill people;
indoctrination, learning to hate enemy; limited understanding of
communism, was gung ho and patriotic; foreignness of Vietnamese;
felt like a game, we were there to stay alive for a year; in
WWII, you went for the duration, not just a year; couldn't hold
onto territory; frustration of not knowing who were friends, who
were enemies; no more massacres in Vietnam than in other wars,
but more TV coverage; too much military policing; having too many
rules in a war is counter-productive; Viet Cong hiding behind the
Vietnamese people; need for a reason to fight, a cause; how
commanders reacted to men having their hands tied; incompetence,
ignorance among troops; ARVNs not as well disciplined, well
trained or motivated as Americans; would have had to stay and
occupy Vietnam as a police state to keep Communists out; feelings
on foreign aid; mistakes US made; inevitability of bombing
innocent people; didn't understand war protestors; people don't
understand what it was like; arrival in Vietnam; landing
postponed because of rocket attack; description of rocket attack;
using reflexes and survival instinct during attack; wretched
poverty, bad smells of countryside; if it weren't for war, would
probably be nice vacation spot; didn't notice how colorful
Vietnam was until got back to States and looked at his pictures;
worked as supply truck driver; remembers his first ambush, wasn't
like target practice; fear in first and last months in Vietnam;
convoy missions, delivering supplies; coping with land mines; air
support from helicopters; Danang as supply depot; heavy fighting
near Dong Ha; his unit was mostly supply, but also had infantry
duties; artillery, Russian-made rockets; supply unit got lots of
rocket and mortar attacks; spent two weeks as a mailman; flying a
Marine helicopter; hated rain, being wet all the time; admiration
of pilots; use of M-14 rifles in Marines; use of gunships, power
of helicopters; use of helicopters versus use of airplanes;
preferred Cobra gunships to B-52s; current dangers of heat
seeking missiles, etc., to pilots; remembers first time he saw
someone's guts falling apart; tragedy of lost limbs; more
disturbed by pain than death; losing relationship with time in
Vietnam; afraid of dying in rocket attack just before going home;
leaving Okinawa, excitement of going home; arrival in US;
surprising his parents with his homecoming; has trouble
remembering details of war; US didn't accomplish anything,
pointlessness of war; war was mostly drudgery; liked M-16 rifles
better than M-14s; awesome firepower of helicopters; doesn't
think of himself as a soldier; before war, could never picture
these old vets with guns in their hands; ambivalent feelings
about time in military; doesn't believe war is a necessary part
of growing up; status of Vietnam veterans, nobody cared; fighting
somebody else's war; people were leery of him when he returned;
no justification for murder, even in war; lack of a real cause in
Vietnam; importance of having a cause; foreignness of Vietnamese
language, culture; feelings on the draft; WWII had a cause, whole
country was behind it; stereotype of Vietnam vets vs. WWII vets;
feelings of uselessness, wasting a year of his life; should have
worked construction in Vietnam; feels bitter, but not screwed up
by war; difficulty adjusting to life in US; counting days till
going home; cultures were too different to relate; military on
focuses on taking over; feelings toward enemy, indoctrination;
admired the enemy for standing up to Americans; trying not to
take things for granted anymore; life so easy here compared to in
Vietnam; appreciates US more now; widespread waste of military;
problems with the way US tries to eradicate communism; sickened
by wasteful ways of military; black market; thoughts on
prostitution; damage military does to towns; how military
disrupts economy of towns; widespread corruption; you lose your
sense of values when killing people; problems inherent in setting
up someone else's government; terrible, useless toll of lives;
people in the US only care about the economy; instances where war
is necessary, e.g. self-defense; maybe communism is better for
them; people only care about war when people they love are
affected; US is wrong to judge what's right and what's wrong;
thoughts on the draft; Nixon's involvement in war; Vietnamese
people not used to freedom; Vietnamese people didn't want us
there; lessons we learned in Vietnam; R&R in Singapore;
wouldn't want to return to Vietnam.
TAPES: 1
TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 1 ½ hours
# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 4 page index
RESTRICTIONS: none