T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME: Thomas C. Joyner, Jr. # 4700.0958

IDENTIFICATION: Vietnam veteran

INTERVIEWER: John Davis

PROJECT: Americans in Vietnam

DATES: 3/74

FOCUS DATES: Sept. 1, 1967-June 1, 1970, March 1, 1970-July 1, 1970

ABSTRACT:

T 1395

Parents; father was in Air Force; childhood in Japan, Texas; enlisted in Army, 1967; basic training at Fort Benning, GA; bayonet exercises during basic training; thought military was silly; first aid class; learning trivial hand to hand combat moves to raise confidence; military careful that people don't get injured during training; military keeps all the soldiers hollering to build mood; advanced individual training in Fort Gordon, GA; weaponry, learning to kill; not allowed to take showers, had bathe in river once a week; training are had similar conditions to Vietnam; simulated Vietnamese village set up for guerilla warfare training; training built unrealistic sense of confidence; learning tactics and technique; soldiers talking about how tough they were getting; commanding officers instilling the idea that men should be rugged and very physical; informal sessions where the military talked about good reasons for US being in Vietnam; feels much different politically now from then; remembers hating communists; Army jump school; Special Forces Training at Fort Bragg; wanted to go to Vietnam; month leave before going to Vietnam; volunteered for top secret operation; secret operations fed his ego; signing papers that he will not talk about secret operations; induction into to secret operations; told he might be sent to Cambodia; code names for operations in surrounding countries; description of montagnards; base camp in Danang, briefings for missions to Laos; outpost at edge of Danang, took blackbird airplane from there; briefings with Vietnamese helicopter pilots; plotting out how to enter into areas; usually had contact with enemy during these missions; purpose of these missions was to find concentration of troops, track troop movement; debriefing after missions; had to take unbelievable amount of notes while out in the field; propaganda campaign against NVA to break down morale of troops; planting weapons with explosives along high speed trails; how propaganda campaign broke morale, decreased their confidence; Joyner's life after war.

TAPES: 1

TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 45 minutes

# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 14 pages

RESTRICTIONS: none